


From the Shadows

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2017 [24]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Death, Developing Relationship, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Slow Burn, Strong Language, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-22 19:28:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11974137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: The Rebellion receives assistance from a covert group of Assassins, and Cassian finds himself working extensively with one of their members.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, and thank you for reading my weird-ass crossover.
> 
> If you're wondering how I came to the idea of crossing-over the Assassin's Creed movie and Star Wars: Rogue One and shipping two of their characters together, the answer is...
> 
> IDK man. I saw Rogue One and Assassin’s Creed within a week of each other and I got to thinking about the similarities between Cassian and Callum. They’ve both got pretty tragic childhoods: Cassian’s dad was killed when he was six and he ended up getting dragged into really violent, radical rebel movements, and Callum’s mom was killed (by his dad) when he was seven and he ended up going in and out of foster homes and constantly getting arrested. They both have a lot of violence in their pasts and a lot of regrets.
> 
> And my brain is kind of like
> 
> “Ship them.”
> 
> “What? But that doesn’t make any-”
> 
> “Ship. Them.” 
> 
> So… There’s probably going to be a sequel to this. At some point.
> 
> Thanks to these two movies coming to meet in my head, I actually have Star Wars and Assassin’s Creed… I guess you could say they’re filed in the same cabinet together in my head. So I’m toying with the idea of doing other crossovers with Assassin’s Creed and Star Wars at some point (And I mean, shit, I have a lot to work with, don’t I?)
> 
> And maybe other Star Wars crossovers too. Kind of depends on how inspiration strikes me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, and thank you for reading my weird-ass crossover.
> 
> If you're wondering how I came to the idea of crossing-over the Assassin's Creed movie and Star Wars: Rogue One and shipping two of their characters together, the answer is...
> 
> IDK man. I saw Rogue One and Assassin’s Creed within a week of each other and I got to thinking about the similarities between Cassian and Callum. They’ve both got pretty tragic childhoods: Cassian’s dad was killed when he was six and he ended up getting dragged into really violent, radical rebel movements, and Callum’s mom was killed (by his dad) when he was seven and he ended up going in and out of foster homes and constantly getting arrested. They both have a lot of violence in their pasts and a lot of regrets.
> 
> And my brain is kind like
> 
> “Ship them.”
> 
> “What? But that doesn’t make any-”
> 
> “Ship. Them.” 
> 
> So… There’s probably going to be a sequel to this. At some point.
> 
> Thanks to these two movies coming to meet in my head, I actually have Star Wars and Assassin’s Creed… I guess you could say they’re filed in the same cabinet together in my head. So I’m toying with the idea of doing other crossovers with Assassin’s Creed and Star Wars at some point (And I mean, shit, I have a lot to work with, don’t I?)
> 
> And maybe other Star Wars crossovers too. Kind of depends on how inspiration strikes me.

The bar was dark, and Cassian could barely see the man in front of him.  
  
That was probably why he’d asked to meet here.  
  
The man was at least two inches taller than Cassian- broader too. He was light-skinned, blue-eyed, and- from the look of the stubble on his chin- dark-blond. He had a cloak on, the hood pulled up to cover his head, and Cassian had half a mind to snap at him to take it off; wearing a hood in a dark bar in a city controlled by the Empire was tantamount to covering yourself with neon lights and screaming ‘I am an extremely suspicious individual, please come ask for my scandocs!’  
  
But Cassian wasn’t going to do that, because he still didn’t have a read on this guy, and he’d been informed that the man- and his organization- were some considerably dangerous individuals.  
  
They were also flighty individuals, so that meant Cassian had to toe the line with this one for the time being.  
  
“You’re the Captain,” The man rumbled, voice low, easily lost in the background noise of the bar for anyone not sitting near enough. “Right?”  
  
Cassian gave a terse nod. “And you’re a representative of the… Brotherhood?”  
  
The man nodded. It was a far easier, calmer nod than Cassian’s. He didn’t seem nervous or concerned about their settings, or about the fact that they were in a neighborhood that the Empire was very fond of doing random searches in. If anything, he seemed a little amused by Cassian’s constrained anxiety.  
  
And frankly, that was only what Cassian couldn’t manage to restrain; he was, in fact, extremely nervous. He wore the new title of Captain like a coat that was too large for him, something that he knew others could _notice_ was too big, too much for him, something that he would have to grow into. He did not have the confidence of the men and women he served with yet, and harbored a simmering fear that he could (and likely _would_ ) fuck up in some exorbitant manner in the near future. He made a conscious effort not to show it, he had always been good at keeping a straight face in moments of fear and pressure.  
  
Now it looked like he was sitting across from a man who could smell it on him.  
  
But then, Assassins were _supposed_ to be good at detecting fear, weren’t they?  
  
“I take it you would like me to reach out to my brothers,” The man said, not drinking from his glass but rotating it on the table and examining the liquid inside. Whether he was looking for evidence of tampering or simply trying to figure out what the hell he’d ordered was beyond Cassian; whatever it was, he must have deemed the drink safe for consumption, because he took a swig and didn’t flinch from the taste. “And see if they harbor any interest in joining in this little game of yours.”  
  
Cassian felt a reflexive surge of anger- this wasn’t a game, this wasn’t anything even _remotely_ close to a game, this was the lives of billions of people hanging in the balance- but he also suspected that it was bait, the man trying to goad him, see how easy it would be to lure Cassian into a confrontation. Cassian was a representative of the Rebellion, and he wanted to see what sort of Rebellion he and his ‘brothers’ might be joining: The hotheaded sort that would be dead before the war even started (the kind, incidentally, that Cassian ran with before Draven had found him), or the kind that could keep their cool in the face of petty insults- trade immediate satisfaction for long-term results.  
  
“That’s the hope, yes.”  
  
The man gave him a wan, almost mocking smile. “Hope?”  
  
Now it was Cassian’s turn to mock. “Yes, hope. Rebellions are _built_ on hope.” He’d come up with that line not long ago, a reminder to the more cynical among his number (including himself) that the entire reason they were doing this was for the hope that one days things might be better. It had become an inner mantra of sorts, and Cassian believed it whole-heartedly.  
  
On his good days, anyway.  
  
The Assassin’s eyes bore into him with a kind of intensity that made Cassian uncomfortable. People who appeared as though they could see right through you made him nervous; there were things that he’d done, things about him that he’d rather never allow to see the light of day, and even though Cassian _knew_ this man couldn’t read his mind, the theoretical possibility that he could see some of Cassian’s thoughts was deeply unsettling.  
  
Abruptly, the man jerked his head to the right, redirecting his intensity to… The wall next to him? Cassian frowned slightly, confused; he might have thought that the man was avoiding his eyes for some reason, but that wasn’t what it looked like. His expression and focus made it appear as though he was looking at something very specific in the empty space between him and the wall- in fact, Cassian could see his eyes moving up and down, as though he were _watching_ something.  
  
Finally, he let out a soft grunt and turned back to Cassian. “Are you and your superiors even sure you _want_ our help?” No acknowledgement of what had just happened. Alright then. Cassian would take that as an unusual quirk as leave it where it laid- for now, anyway.  
  
“If we weren’t interested, they wouldn’t have me risking my neck to come have a chat with you,” Cassian responded.  
  
Again, the man gave him that searching, piercing-look. “We’re Assassins,” He said finally, quietly. “We don’t play nicely. We spy, we sabotage, we start a lot of trouble, and we kill people. I’ve killed my fair share, and I’ve done it because it was necessary. Are you certain your Rebellion is going to be alright with that?”  
  
Cassian almost laughed at that. The Rebel Alliance was, by far, the most organized and least openly destructive of the rebel factions. They were, as this man suggested, a team, and a reasonably organized one to boot. They understood the necessity of winning hearts and minds, and of making sure that any violence committed on their parts was calculated and, as the Assassin had so deliberately put it, ‘necessary’.  
  
But that violence did exist.  
  
Cassian had killed people too, and allowed people to be killed as well. He had left good men behind in the field for the sake of a mission. He had shot people in cold blood- and not necessarily people who had deserved to die, either. He had committed mercy-killings, shots to the head for the injured that were near-death and not wanting to be subjected to torture by the Empire. He may not have been part of the Brotherhood, but Cassian was every bit an assassin as he was a spy.  
  
“What sort of people?” Cassian asked, playing along, dancing near the subject but being cautious not to tread on it directly just yet.  
  
“Bad people.”  
  
“‘Bad people.’”  
  
The Assassin didn’t flinch, clarifying: “Rapist pimps who slam teenage girls’ heads onto bars.”  
  
That was more specific than Cassian was expecting. There was a note of cold loathing in the man’s voice as he said it, and it was obvious that the example was personal.  
  
Reservations aside, Cassian was starting to like him.  
  
“Then I think we can handle it.”  
  
The corner of the Assassin’s lip twitched. “Let’s hope so.” He turned his head slightly to the right again- now as though he was _hearing_ something that Cassian couldn’t. After a moment, he nodded slowly. “I’ll talk to the Brotherhood.”  
  
Cassian nodded in return, trying not to look too off-put by the behavior. “The Rebellion awaits your response.”  
  
The meeting was over. He wasn’t in the habit of lingering after such things, as every moment he spent in public areas like this increased the likelihood of him being recognized by someone Cassian would rather not deal with. He stood up, pulled his jacket off the back of his chair, nodded to the Assassin, and then turned to leave.  
  
“Lynch.”  
  
Cassian stopped and rotated back towards the table. “Pardon?”  
  
“Lynch. That’s my name.” His eyes locked with Cassian’s and gave a minute shrug. “If my Order consents to this, you and I will probably be working together again. You might as well know.”  
  
Cassian raised an eyebrow at that. Politeness dictated that he give his name as well; prudence dictated that he keep his mouth shut. It could be a false name, a red herring to lead him into a false sense of trust- for all he knew, Lynch was deliberately trying to lead him into a trap. Alternatively, he might be trying to extend an olive branch, and refusing would only irritate him.  
  
“Cassian Andor.”  
  
Draven would kill him if he found out that one of his Captains had impulsively given his full, actual name to a _potential_ ally.  
  
But he’d have a stroke if he’d heard what Lynch said next:  
  
“I knew that.”  
  
[---]  
  
One week later, a contact in the field relayed a message back to Rebel Intelligence:  
  
It was one sentence, short and sweet:  
  
_“The Brotherhood accepts your invitation._ ”  
  
Draven banged his fist on the table and looked to Cassian. “Good work, Andor.”  
  
And Cassian let out a sigh of relief.  
  
[---]  
  
“I do not like this,” K-2SO said, in an unintentionally deceptive voice that made him sound more robotic than usual. When he spoke in such a way, one could be lulled into believing that K-2SO was a mild-mannered droid who went about carrying out his business in a cloud of blissful compliance.  
  
In reality, he was a sarcastic pain in the ass that was _so lacking_ in a verbal filter that Cassian often forgot he was speaking to a droid. Though they had only known each other for almost three years, Cassian could say with surprisingly certainty that he loved K-2SO dearly. He was easily Cassian’s only friend- and vice-versa.  
  
Semi-reliable intelligence placed the original home-world of the Brotherhood of Assassins on a planet on the Outer Rim, code-named ‘Eden’. But, allegedly, the Brotherhood itself had branched out to most worlds in the galaxy with secret cells hidden amongst the general population.  
  
Prior to the Clone Wars, the Brotherhood was a virtually unrecognized society: They never claimed responsibility for the assassinations they performed, and they were so good at what they did that it was nearly impossible to tell when they were involved in a murder; according to more reliable historical sources, the few times a member of the Brotherhood had been caught and arrested it was usually for a less serious crime, like theft or non-deadly assault.  
  
Once the Clone Wars had broken out, however, word had it that the Assassins were firmly on the fence of things. Evidently the Senate had called upon them for assistance, seeking help to defeat the Separatists and promising amnesty for any members of the Brotherhood who were caught and imprisoned.  
  
Cassian had read the Brotherhood’s alleged response, supposedly sent to the (then) Supreme Chancellor Palpatine:  
  
_‘We work in the dark to serve the light._  
  
_And we are not terribly fucking convinced that you’re the light.’_  
  
“Called it, didn’t they?” Cassian had remarked to Draven at the time.  
  
“If only they’d _done_ something about it,” Was the General’s flat response.  
  
Desperate as the Rebellion was for assistance, they sought the Brotherhood out. It had taken years of work, of undercover agents monitoring Imperial Intelligence and scouring the lowest dredges of society on every known planet they could, until they found someone that finally admitted that, yes, they _did_ know how to contact the Brotherhood and would throw the Rebels a bone.  
  
And finally, _finally,_ it had paid off.  
  
So as much as Cassian valued K-2SO’s opinion, he _really_ didn’t want to hear it. Still, he felt obligated to ask.  
  
“Why don’t you like it, Kay?” Cassian pushed a branch out of his way as he walked. It smacked K-2SO’s chest on the rebound, but the droid didn’t seem to notice.  
  
“The odds of this being a very elaborate trap are high.”  
  
Cassian rolled his eyes. He was still of the opinion that K-2SO’s cynicism colored his statistical outputs, but predictably, K-2SO disagreed. “How high?”  
  
“77.392%.”  
  
“And what factors are you basing that off of?”  
  
“Oh, let me _think_ ,” K-2SO drawled. “I suppose we should start with the fact that we’re meeting a self-admitted assassin in the middle of the woods in an entirely uninhabited area, the fact that said assassin comes from an organization whose political alignments are entirely unknown to anyone outside of it, the fact that there are only two of us against a man who, based on what little _is_ known about the Brotherhood, has likely been taught to kill people in a creative number of ways-”  
  
Cassian quickly held up a hand. “Shh.” He’d heard something. Cassian lowered himself into a crouch and motioned for K-2SO to do the same. The droid acquiesced silently mechanical joints barely making any sound at all as he lowered himself to the ground.  
  
Thankfully, it was summer on this planet, and the amount of foliage on the ground was minimal at best, so Cassian made little to no noise at all as he inched forward. He motioned for K-2SO to stay where he was, and as he turned, saw the droid’s eyes flicker strangely- probably what passed as an eye-roll for him.  
  
As he got closer, the voice became clearer, and Cassian found that he recognized it almost immediately.  
  
“-be a hypocrite. You know that’s not fair.”  
  
That was Lynch.  
  
Cassian’s stomach flipped. They’d agreed to meet alone- well, that is, it was supposed to be Lynch, Cassian, and K-2SO. That was what had been agreed upon. If Lynch had violated the terms of that agreement already, then K-2SO’s theory about this being a trap would have a lot more weight to it.  
  
Up ahead was a ledge. It wasn’t until Cassian had crawled up to the edge of it that he was able to look down and see Lynch and better hear the conversation he was having.  
  
“You know what I mean,” The Assassin was saying.  
  
Except that Lynch wasn’t talking to a person, or even into a communicator. He was looking at the air to his left and behaving for all the world as though there was another person standing there.  
  
“I don’t see why that would be a problem.”  
  
Pause.  
  
“No, Aguilar, I _don’t_.”  
  
Pause.  
  
“I don’t think he would.”  
  
Pause.  
  
“I can tell.”  
  
Pause.  
  
“And what has _you_ so convinced?”  
  
Pause.  
  
“And you’re saying I don’t? _You_ don’t?”  
  
Pause.  
  
“Since when are you judge, jury, and executioner?”  
  
Pause.  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
Cassian watched silently, frowning, trying to see if there was some sort of device, some sort of way that he was communicating with another person that he just wasn’t seeing. But no- even Lynch’s hand gestures and body language suggested that he was speaking with a person that was right next to him.  
  
_What is this,_ Cassian wondered, somewhat alarmed. _Some sort of Assassin thing?_ He’d heard that the Jedi had been able to read minds, sometimes speak telepathically with one another- did the Brotherhood of Assassins have something like that? And if they did have some sort of telepathy, how safe was it for Cassian to be working with him?  
  
The feeling of unease came back in a rush, and his stomach twisted unpleasantly. He hoped he was wrong, because Cassian wasn’t sure he could work with a man who might be reading this mind on the sly. Suspicion and mistrust was worked so deeply into Cassian’s instincts it was practically in his bones; there would be no way he could trust someone if he knew they had the power to see inside his head.  
  
A slight motion to his left sharply startled Cassian, and he fumbled for his blaster. He needn’t have- it was only K-2SO, blatantly disobeying an order yet again. Cassian rolled his eyes shut and shook his head. The droid looked away from the captain and down towards the Assassin on the ground, listening and observing the odd conversation.  
  
“I think that Lynch might be slightly insane,” K-2SO whispered mildly. It could have been a targeted bite as much as it could have been a simple observation; sometimes it was hard to tell with K-2SO.  
  
Below, Lynch immediately fell silent, and he ducked backwards under the outcropping. He was silent for several moments, and Cassian realized that he probably hadn’t heard exactly what K-2SO had said- just that he’d heard something that sounded suspiciously like speech. He stood, brushing the dirt off his knees and quickly motioned for the droid to do so as well. “Shh, Kay, keep your voice down, we don’t know what else might be out here.” Cassian said it louder than he needed to, mostly to make sure he didn’t get a knife to the chest when he came into view, and made his walk down the hill as loud and clumsy as he could.  
  
By the time he got to the bottom, Lynch looked as calm and cool as could be. Cassian pretended to be surprised to see him. “There you are. We were starting to wonder how far into the woods we’d have to walk to find you.”  
  
“You should learn to be quieter,” Lynch grunted. “I heard you coming a mile off.”  
  
Cassian had to resist the urge to smirk. _No you didn’t._ “Is good hearing part of the requirements to become an Assassin then?”  
  
Lynch, he abruptly realized, was probably not telepathic. If he was, he would have noticed Cassian on the ridge before K-2SO had spoken. And he wouldn’t have bothered lying just now about hearing Cassian and K-2SO coming- he would have known that Cassian knew.  
  
As it was, Lynch brushed off the quip and jerked his head. “This way. The village is a about a mile out.” He looked K-2SO up and down. “You’ll be a good fit for what we need to get done.”  
  
“Glad to know I can be of some help,” K-2SO said dryly.  
  
When the Assassin turned his back, Cassian looked up at K-2SO and mouthed very clearly: _Say nothing about what we’ve seen._ Part of Cassian’s reprogramming had given the droid the necessary programming that allowed him to read lips. He’d figured that it would be useful in the field.  
  
K-2SO hesitated; he was probably re-running the program to make sure that he’d interpreted the words correctly. After a moment, he nodded.  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Cassian grimaced and shook his head- what was the point of speaking silently behind someone’s back if K-2SO was going to tip Lynch off that they were having a discussion in the first place?  
  
But the Assassin said nothing. He didn’t even turn around.  
  
[---]  
  
There were times when spy-work was exciting.  
  
Not… _Good_ exciting, Cassian had never had the luxury of viewing spies and revolutionaries as mysterious heroes who were pure and good and had wonderful adventures. He’d been at this since he was six; he knew damn well the nastiness that lay in the profession, the stuff that didn’t always make it into the children’s stories. The things Cassian did made his heart pound, his blood race, his legs shake, all in the moment they were happening in- but later on they made him anxious and cold inside, made sleeping difficult and connecting with others even harder. That was the sort of exciting that described espionage.  
  
And then there were times when Cassian would rather watch paint dry.  
  
It had begun raining about halfway to the village. Cassian had pulled the hood of his coat up, and Lynch had to raise his voice to be heard. “There’s a man living in the village. He’s got two sons working at an Imperial installation on Jenoport, and he has some information for us. Or rather,” He had turned and cocked an eyebrow at K-2SO, “He has some information for the Imperial Droid that’s going to knock on his door and initiate a routine inspection.”  
  
“By this I take you to mean that there is a significant Imperial presence in the village?” K-2SO had inquired.  
  
“Not as heavy as it could be,” Lynch had admitted. “But heavy enough that if you can slip in there without tipping anyone off, the better. I’ve seen droids of your make patrolling.”  
  
Cassian had looked to K-2SO. “Think you’ll be alright?”  
  
“I have the basic outline of my original programming in my memory. I should be able to interact with other droids of the same make without issue.”  
  
Cassian had some healthy concerns about that. K-2SO was a shockingly poor liar, and he was partially to blame for that: Something had clearly gone wrong with the reprogramming, because there were other droids of the same and similar make that were more than capable of being deceptive, especially when instructed to.  
  
At present, he and Lynch were lying on their stomachs under some foliage on a hill that overlooked the village. Unfortunately, the village was just large enough that eventually Cassian lost track of K-2SO’s movements among the buildings, even with the binoculars, and was forced into the burning, (forcibly) low-level anxiety that came over him whenever the droid was on a mission and out of his reach.  
  
As for his remaining partner, they went just over forty minutes without speaking. It was hands-down the longest time a mission partner had managed to go without talking during a stakeout; Cassian could take or leave conversation that wasn’t strictly related to the mission at hand, but most of the people he worked with felt the need to fill the silence when they could.  
  
More often than not, they also felt like prodding at the young Captain and trying to figure out what made him tick.  
  
Lynch, for his part, seemed motivated to speak from sheer boredom; he was shifting and squirming restlessly, a departure from the calm, cool man Cassian had met in the bar, or in the clearing earlier. At least seventeen times in the last forty minutes Cassian had heard him grunt when a particularly large splash of water dripped from the leaves above them and soaked through his hood (a very thin one, at that. Cassian didn’t see how it would protect him from the cold, so its purpose must be centered on disguise rather than practical weather protection).  
  
“So. The droid.”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“Where’d you meet him?”  
  
Cassian was quiet. The question was odd to him, but he couldn’t place a finger on why at first. Then it occurred to him that, usually, when people asked about K-2SO, the language tended to be more… impersonal: ‘Where did you find this thing’, ‘where did you dredge this tin can up’, ‘where’d you get it’. It was rare for people to speak about K-2SO with the sort of language you’d use for an organic (that being, with even a basic level of respect, which Cassian suspected in some part was due to the lingering attitudes about combat droids, and in some part due to the fact that K-2SO was basically an Imperial defector).  
  
He chewed on the answer for a moment. There were levels of trust, and Lynch had earned his way onto the very basic lower levels already. But until he climbed higher, Cassian would have to be careful to edit out details and stories that weren’t meant to be heard by anyone but the strictly trustworthy.  
  
“I was poking around an Imperial Base,” He said, “And I needed information. It took some time to reprogram him so that he didn’t try to turn me in. I thought about leaving him when I’d gotten what I needed, but…”  
  
Lynch turned his head slightly. One blue eye blinked curiously at Cassian. “But?”  
  
Cassian shrugged slightly. “He wanted to come with me.”  
  
“Simple as that?”  
  
“Simple as that.”  
  
What went unsaid was how surprised Cassian had been by K-2SO’s personality once the reprogramming was finished, how surprisingly un-menacing his eyes and body appeared once his voice became full of sarcasm and _emotion_ , however limited, instead of the robotic cadence he’d had before. Logic dictated that he should have destroyed K-2SO immediately following the reception of the required information; something else had convinced him that a reprogrammed Imperial droid would be useful, and to bring him back to Yavin 4 and risk Draven’s incredulous wrath.  
  
Lynch didn’t need to know that, though. Cassian had never been inclined to pouring his life-story out to everyone like some people were; and in any case, giving away sensitive information was, in the espionage business, tantamount to painting a target on your back and writing ‘STAB ME HERE’ in big, bold letters right above it.  
  
But, if this was question-hour, Cassian had more than a few of his own that he was itching to ask.  
  
“As long as we’re talking,” Cassian posed coolly, “I am curious about something.”  
  
“Alright.”  
  
Cassian detected a note of wariness in Lynch’s tone, and frankly, he didn’t blame him. “It’s nothing too personal, I think. But why is it that the Brotherhood of Assassins chose to get involved with the Rebellion?” Cassian tried to keep the depth of his curiosity out of his voice. “Why this war? Why not the Clone Wars? I saw the- well, _alleged_ \- response the Brotherhood sent to Palpatine then. You thought he wasn’t trustworthy. Why didn’t you back the Separatists?”  
  
Lynch looked at him the same way he had in the bar: With that deep, piercing look that made Cassian uncomfortable. After a moment he said, “You’re… What. Twenty-four, right?”  
  
Cassian couldn’t stop his face from heating, even as he nodded. Damn it, how did he _know_ these things? Or maybe, more appropriately, how did the _Brotherhood_ know these things? “I am.”  
  
“So you were four when all of it started.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I was eleven. I wasn’t a member of the Brotherhood then.” He paused, expression unreadable. “Dooku wasn’t any better than the Senate. Trust me.” Cassian couldn’t tell if that was a personal assessment on Lynch’s part, or the Brotherhood’s official reasoning for staying out of the war. “The Brotherhood knew the Republic was corrupt. But they figured Dooku’s game out pretty quickly as well. So they did what they’d always done: Looked for individual instances of injustice and tried to fix it.”  
  
Cassian said nothing. Though he logically understood that his father’s individual motivations had differed considerably from Dooku’s, it never made him comfortable to consider that his father and many other Festian men had been pawns in a much larger game played by others.  
  
Lynch sent him a look out of the corner of his eye. “I can still see the gears turning. Anything else you wanted to ask?  
  
Oh, Cassian did have _one_ more question in mind…  
  
“Well…” He started, mind making its last-minute arguments on whether or not this was a good idea to bring up. “I did have _one_.”  
  
Lynch smirked slightly, apparently amused by the feigned innocence in Cassian’s tone. “And what’s that?”  
  
Ah, why not: Best to get it out of the way immediately.  
  
“Who’s Aguilar?”  
  
Cassian was satisfied to see Lynch’s careful composure evaporate for a moment: His eyes widened, his mouth opened slightly, and he just looked _caught._ Apparently he hadn’t considered that Cassian and K-2SO had overheard his conversation. (So _definitely_ not telepathic, and Cassian was wildly relieved to have confirmation of that).  
  
But evidently the Force sympathized with Lynch, because it intervened on his behalf.  
  
**_BOOM._**  
  
A puff of smoke erupted from the center of the village, followed by several distant bangs and cracks.  
  
“Shit,” Lynch whispered, face darkening.  
  
A lot of things went through Cassian’s head.  
  
Only one made it to his mouth:  
  
“Kay.”  
  
[---]  
  
They slid into the village as quickly and carefully as they could. The lack of Imperial presence on the border made Cassian vaguely nauseous: They had clearly been drawn off to address some other catastrophe, and he had a terrible feeling that whatever it was, K-2SO was at the center of it.  
  
If K-2SO was a better liar, Cassian might have been less concerned. But the droid had proven already that he couldn’t lie his way out of a wet paper bag, and that meant that it was usually better for him to stick close to Cassian on missions; as long as he had someone feeding him the correct lines, he could make it sound real.  
  
Except that K-2SO wasn’t supposed to have lied to anyone, he was only supposed to have ambled down to the informant’s house and carefully avoided any troopers on the way there.  
  
The village had fallen eerily quiet by the time Lynch and Cassian had snuck in. There were no sirens, no troopers, and no people- clearly the civilians were accustomed to hunkering down when trouble came. They’d been scouting for a few minutes when Lynch tapped Cassian’s shoulder.  
  
“I’m going to go to the rooftops,” he whispered. “I’ll watch your back from there.”  
  
Cassian nodded, one hand on his blaster. He was keeping it holstered for the time being- if he could pass himself off as a civilian or a tourist in a pinch, it would be better than starting a fire-fight, especially in such close quarters; the houses didn’t look terribly sturdy, and it was too easy to picture a blaster bolt going through a wall and killing someone.  
  
Cassian kept close to the buildings, trying to duck around windows and listen for movement. As he got closer to the center of the village, the squawk of radios and the voice modifiers of Stormtrooper helmets made him tense. He strained his hearing, tried to figure out what they were saying and how close they might be to him-  
  
“ _Hey-!_ ”  
  
The exclamation was immediately followed by a strangled sound from above. Cassian started, jerked his head up, blaster at the ready-  
  
Lynch was there, the crook of his arm wrapped around the neck of a Stormtrooper, who was sinking to the floor of the observation deck.  
  
Cassian’s breath caught in his throat.  
  
Another few seconds and there probably would have been a dozen Stormtroopers bearing down on him.  
  
Lynch stared down at the trooper for a moment, probably making sure he was down for the count, and then nodded to Cassian in confirmation before sliding out of sight, back to the cover of the rooftops. He moved like he was an extension of the shadows, like he could sink or emerge from the darkness at will. Up to this point, Cassian had been wary of Lynch as a stranger who was also a professional assassin; but now, now he was starting to understand why some people spoke of the Brotherhood of Assassins with such hushed reverence. If not for the fleeting glimpses into Lynch’s humanity earlier, Cassian might have found himself downright frightened of the man.  
  
Cassian shook off the shock and kept moving.  
  
Twice Lynch signaled him from the rooftop: _Watch out, troopers ahead_ , and Cassian would back up and circle around to the other side of the building. But eventually it came to such a point where he couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over a Stormtrooper. He caught bits and pieces of conversation that made him sick: ‘Droid’ and ‘Programming’ and ‘Locate’. The only silver lining to what he heard was that it sounded like K-2SO hadn’t been caught yet.  
  
From above, Lynch motioned for Cassian to stay where he was for a moment. Cassian was frustrated, but accepted that Lynch had stealth embedded in his bones as deeply as Cassian had suspicion in his own, and crouched down behind some waste bins to wait for a signal, wary of the sounds of troopers nearby.  
  
This was a heavily forested planet with a thick, humid climate, and the rain had not helped- neither had wearing his jacket, since the rain had stopped now and all it was doing was making him even more uncomfortable. Trying to stay still when every piece of him felt wet and sticky and disgusting was difficult; Cassian hailed from Fest, which was a notoriously cold and snowy planet, and any world with a tropical or warm climate was enough to make him antsy. The fact that there were Stormtroopers all around him certainly didn’t-  
  
A hand clapped down on his shoulder and Cassian just about _seized_ with alarm. “ _Fuck_ ing-!”  
  
“Cassian, there are Stormtroopers everywhere, don’t be so loud.”  
  
Cassian’s eyes fairly rolled back into his damn head.  
  
“ _Kay!_ ” He hissed. “What is _wrong_ with you? You scared the life out of me!”  
  
K-2SO blinked at him in that infuriating way that he did. “Well, you didn’t expect me to start jumping up and down and shouting your name, did you? That would be stupid.”  
  
“What happened? What was that explosion?”  
  
K-2SO gave the droid-equivalent of a sigh. “It would seem that my cohorts have been given some new update in the last month or so. I spoke with the informant, but after leaving the house I encountered another KX droid who identified me as being aberrant to a Stormtrooper.” He shrugged. “I take it you can conclude what happened after that.”  
  
“And the explosion?”  
  
K-2SO didn’t speak for a moment. Cassian suddenly felt weary in a way he only was when K-2SO did something stupid. “I don’t think we need to get into that, really.”  
  
Cassian rubbed his eyes. It was always a risk when bringing K-2SO on a mission, especially when there was a strong possibility of encountering Stormtroopers. Inevitably the KX droids would be updated, and K-2SO might not be able to falsify details on his own. Cassian had twice managed to steal information from KX droids on a mission to supplement everything K-2SO had missed since being pulled from the Empire, but Cassian could hardly predict when the updates would happen.  
  
“Alright,” He whispered raggedly. “Lynch is scouting the area. When he gets back we’ll probably just-”  
  
“ _Stop right there!_ ”  
  
There came an explosion of blaster-fire, and Cassian jumped thinking they’d been spotted- but the blaster-fire came from further away, and he couldn’t feel the concussions on the house or bins beside him. They weren’t firing at him, or at K-2SO.  
  
Which left one very obvious conclusion.  
  
“Damn it,” Cassian hissed, and vaulted over the bins. “Come on, Kay!”  
  
It didn’t take long to find the battle, which was decidedly one-sided: The Stormtroopers were firing up at the roof of a particular house, and one of them was directing a few others to find a way onto the top of the house. Much as Cassian didn’t like giving K-2SO blasters- there was always some concern that his old programming might kick in, as well as the fact that K-2SO was just generally unpredictable even _without_ a weapon- he frantically rooted around in his bag until he found his spare and shoved it into the droid’s hand.  
  
Cassian floundered for a moment, trying to find cover that didn’t involve ducking behind a house full of people- the best he could do was taking cover right on the corner, where the odds of the body of the house being hit were slimmer, and opened fire. The troopers had clearly not expected to take fire from behind, and so the group that had been about to ascend to the roof began firing at Cassian, who ducked back under the ferociousness of the attack. K-2SO was bolder, leaning over Cassian to shoot around the corner and keeping his head and arm exposed longer.  
  
“I calculate no more than thirty-five Stormtroopers in this area,” The droid said loudly over the blaster-fire. “Backup will arrive from the Imperial base in the West in no less than thirty minutes.”  
  
Then they had ten to get out of the village, and twenty to put enough distance between themselves and the village if they wanted to leave the planet before the big guns caught up to them. Not a great deal of time.  
  
_FWOOF._  
  
Cassian peeked out from behind the wall and saw that a cloud of smoke had erupted in the street. Pulses of red erupted from inside the cloud, along with choked cries of pain. Cassian quickly reached up and pulled K-2SO’s hand down. “Wait, wait, I think  
that’s Lynch- don’t shoot unless you know it’s a trooper.”  
  
He took a few shots when he saw the signature white armor. Several Stormtroopers were stumbling out of the smoke, apparently uninjured, only to be shot down by Cassian and K-2SO. The smoke seemed to take a good amount of time to dissipate; it was probably some special mixture the Assassins used to maintain their cover for longer. That, or Lynch had detonated multiple smoke bombs at once.  
  
When the smoke finally did dissipate, Lynch was nowhere to be seen, though at least fifteen unconscious Stormtroopers laid on the ground. Cassian rapidly did the math: K-2SO estimated thirty-five at most, there were… Twenty or so unconscious on the ground between Lynch’s attack and Cassian and K-2SO’s; as he counted, K-2SO shot down three more troopers who were still reeling in confusion, so twenty-three. There was another cry from behind a building, definitely a trooper- twenty-four. Eleven short of the maximum count.  
  
And then there was silence.  
  
“Kay,” Cassian whispered. “Can you do a scan? Non-invasive as possible?”  
  
“I might leave a trail,” K-2SO warned.  
  
Cassian chewed his lip. A scan would reveal hidden troopers, which would reduce the possibility of getting a blaster-bolt in his head when he stepped out from cover. But the likelihood of K-2SO leaving an electronic footprint that might make it easier for the Empire to identify him in the future was also a potent concern.  
  
A thump on the rooftop above him was Cassian’s only warning before Lynch dropped to the ground beside him. He rose out of his crouch and wobbled slightly; he must have hurt his leg. Not shocking, given that he was basically fighting blind in that smoke. “You two alright?”  
  
Cassian nodded. “Yeah, we’re fine. Kay spoke with the informant, he has the information.”  
  
“Backup is coming within four minutes,” K-2SO added pointedly. “We should probably leave the village before it gets here.”  
  
Lynch nodded distractedly. “Right, right.” He stepped out from behind the building ahead of Cassian, and as he was not immediately downed by enemy fire, Cassian had to assume that it was as safe as it was going to get.  
  
“If we move quickly,” The captain said, “We should be able to make it back to the ship before they have a chance to initiate a sweep.”  
  
Lynch snorted slightly. “‘Should’. Is it just Assassins, or do you find Rebels using that word a lot?”  
  
Suddenly, Lynch froze. He turned his head to the side, away from Cassian.  
  
“What?” He said, to nothing.  
  
The pause lasted maybe five seconds.  
  
Then his eyes widened, and he whipped around, yanking a knife out of his belt and letting it fly in one fluid motion up at a shadow on a rooftop that Cassian had _not_ noticed until that moment- and a Stormtrooper carrying what appeared to be a sniper-rifle fell to the ground with a choked cry.  
  
Cassian stood where he was, trying to catch his breath and failing.  
  
_What did I just see?_  
  
Lynch turned around, mouth set in a tight, pained line as he tested his weight on his injured leg. He saw Cassian’s bewildered look and said, “What?”  
  
“How did you…?”  
  
_How did you know he was there?_  
  
Except that Cassian already had a feeling that he knew the answer to that question, and the Assassin did not disappoint him.  
  
“You have Kay,” Lynch panted. “I have Aguilar.”  
  
[---]  
  
“He’s my ancestor.”  
  
They were nearly back to the place in the woods where they’d met earlier. K-2SO had offered to carry him, but Lynch had waved him off. He’d spent the last hour and half hobbling as fast as he could manage, emphasizing that they needed to get out off the planet before the Imperials started dragging the area.  
  
Cassian turned and looked at him. “What?”  
  
“Aguilar. He’s my ancestor. He’s sort of a, uh…” Lynch made a face. “…I don’t want to say ‘ghost’. It sounds stupid. It’s his consciousness, it was kind of, uh… _Reactivated_ through my DNA.”  
  
“Like a dormant program,” K-2SO suggested, and Lynch nodded.  
  
“Yeah, something like that.”  
  
Cassian had stopped walking altogether at this point and fixed Lynch with an odd look. “How in the hell did that happen?”  
  
“It was a Templar organization, they were kidnapping people of Assassin descent and using this machine-”  
  
“Templars?”  
  
Lynch waved his hand. “It’s Assassin business. Don’t worry about it.” That wasn’t nearly satisfying enough, but Cassian was willing to let it pass- for now, anyway. “I can see Aguilar, and he can… I don’t know _how_ , exactly, but to some extent he can see and hear things independent of me. Kind of like a sixth sense. Eyes and ears in the back of my head.”  
  
“And you talk to him.” K-2SO’s addition, as far as Cassian was concerned, was unnecessary, but Lynch nodded all the same. “Why?”  
  
“Like I said, his consciousness is independent from mine. He’s got a fully-functioning mind, and his own emotions.” Lynch paused, like he was hesitating. “He has his own opinions on certain things, too.”  
  
“Like the wisdom in allying with Rebel soldiers?” Cassian’s brain had come to the conclusion just short of his mouth saying the words. Everything from earlier suddenly made sense: Lynch had been arguing with Aguilar about trusting Cassian and K-2SO.  
  
“Don’t take it personally. He doesn’t trust anyone.”  
  
“I like him already.”  
  
Lynch snorted. “Aguilar comes from a generation of very… _Intense_ Assassins.” He paused, and Cassian saw his head twitch slightly to the right.  
  
“Is he talking to you now?”  
  
Lynch’s shoulders sank slightly. Cassian couldn’t tell if it was relief that he didn’t need to hide it, or embarrassment that it was now semi-public knowledge. “He is.”  
  
“What did he say?”  
  
Maybe it was his imagination, but Lynch’s lips seemed to twitch into a small smile for the briefest moment. “He disputed my implication that his generation of Assassins was more radical than the current. And _my_ response,” He said pointedly, not bothering to hide the look he shot to his right, “Is that anyone willing to condone a perfectly good finger to be cut off, from themselves or someone else, to prove your dedication doesn’t have all of their nuts and bolts screwed in tightly enough.”  
  
There was silence for nearly a full minute after that.  
  
And as that minute unfolded, Cassian was surprised to see a genuine smile unfurl over Lynch’s lips.  
  
When he saw Cassian staring, the smile widened. “He’s cursing me out.”  
  
Cassian smiled a little himself, shook his head and chuckled at the mental image; maybe Lynch was telling the truth, or maybe he had a few screws loose, but he didn’t seem to be the malicious sort. In fact, when he wasn’t trying to make himself look scary or mysterious, Lynch was actually kind of-  
  
No.  
  
No, no, no.  
  
Cassian had learned this lesson before. A Rebellion, wartime in _general_ was not a good place or time to be making friends, or anything else for that matter. He knew that, had paid for the mistake so many times when he was a teenager, had so many names and faces he no longer allowed himself to dwell on because of the pain they brought him. When Draven had recruited him he had resolved to put the miseries of his past behind him: He was in the Rebel Alliance now, it was a new day, and he was going to do things differently.  
  
No friends.  
  
No lovers.  
  
No make-shift families.  
  
No distractions.  
  
No heartaches when they finally got a blaster bolt to their skulls.  
  
To date, K-2SO was the only exception he’d made to that rule, and even then it was a technicality: If K-2SO got blasted to pieces, at least there was hope that he could be reassembled. His odds of being permanently, irreversibly killed in the field were smaller than that of an organic if a blaster was involved. K-2SO was the only exception because Cassian might have actually gone insane if he hadn’t had _someone_ he could rely on or connect to the way one connected with a friend or family member.  
  
Cassian did not need to be making friends with Lynch. No matter how friendly he looked right now, or how much he might actually be able to understand what it was to take a life to further a cause he believed in, it didn’t matter: The deeper the connection with another person, the deeper the _hurt_ when they were gone.  
  
He felt the smile slide from his face like the drops of water that fell from the trees above. A low pang of regret resonated through him when he saw Lynch’s smile fade as well; the only thing worse than having no friends in your life was recognizing an opportunity for friends and having to scrap it for your own mental and emotional survival.  
  
Cassian should really start keeping a list of all the things he’s had to sacrifice for the Rebellion. Or maybe a book.  
  
“We should keep moving,” Lynch said. He didn’t look angry or even bothered by the sudden, obvious drop in the mood- he looked carefully neutral, in fact. “Every second counts.”  
  
Cassian tugged at his gloves, readjusting them instead of looking Lynch in the eye. “You should let me take care of your leg first. We’ll move faster if it’s not hurting you as much.”  
  
“It’s fine.”  
  
“I’ve seen men with only one leg move faster than you’re moving right now,” Was K-2SO’s skeptical observation.  
  
“He has a point,” Cassian agreed. “At least let me take a look at it. I’ll try not to take too long.”  
  
Lynch heaved a sigh, but hobbled over to a tree and leaned back against it, reaching down to tug the leg of his pants up. It proved to be difficult, since it was tucked into his nearly knee-high boots, and after a moment Lynch just growled in frustration, pulled a knife, and sliced the pant-leg open. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that all of Lynch’s clothing was molded as closely to his body as possible, even his cloak.  
  
Cassian knelt down and examined the Assassin’s leg carefully. It didn’t look like he’d been shot: The skin was black and blue, and there was a gash along the side of Lynch’s calf. The bruising was extensive and would require some deeper attention later, but for the time being, a Bacta bandage would manage the gash.  
  
“Are you done? I’m getting antsy.”  
  
“I can tell,” Cassian retorted as he unwrapped the bandage. “Just wait a minute. Brace yourself: This is going to hurt pretty badly.” Slapping a Bacta bandage on an open wound felt a lot like rubbing salt into one.  
  
Lynch tensed slightly, but- to Cassian’s shock- he didn’t even flinch when the Bacta hit the cut. Cassian had seen people, people who were not unaccustomed to pain, _scream_ when Bacta hit an open wound that hadn’t been anesthetized first, but Lynch didn’t make even a peep. Stars, was he even human?  
  
Cassian wrapped the bandage tightly as he dared, and then tugged the pant leg back down. “Alright, you’re good.” He hesitated. “You’ll need to have someone get a look at your leg. You should come back to the base with me.”  
  
Lynch cocked an eyebrow at him. “They’d let me in?”  
  
K-2SO turned from where he’d been surveying the area and stared at Cassian. “They’d let him in?”  
  
Cassian snorted. “Oh, after centuries of radio-silence from the Brotherhood, I think they’d be more than happy to let you in.”  
  
[---]  
  
He wasn’t wrong.  
  
Before they’d boarded the U-Wing to return to Yavin 4, Lynch had pulled a communicator from his cloak and stepped off to the side to quietly contact the Brotherhood. Cassian had stepped into the ship to contact the Rebellion with a warning that he was bringing the Assassin back with him.  
  
The initial message read as follows:  
  
_Transmission log[#43689996](https://www.livejournal.com/rsearch/?tags=%2343689996)_  
_To Cpt Cassian F Andor from Gen Davits Draven_  


 

**_TRANSMISSION TRANSCRIPTION RAW:_ **

 

 

_Cpt Andor, the joke is highly unappreciated._

_Transmission Time: 5.6 minutes_  
_Frequency Type: Encrypted (High Level)_  
  
Draven was not known for his sense of humor in person, and he was even less known for it when it came to official business. He genuinely believed that Cassian was playing some sort of joke.  
  
So Cassian had re-sent the message, this time emphasizing that he was not joking. By the time the General responded (“ _Acknowledged; return to base._ ”) Lynch had hobbled onto the ship and taken up a seat along the wall. “Is your ship secured?” Cassian had asked.  
  
Lynch had smirked a bit. “There’s a member of the Brotherhood coming to recover it later. Believe me, until then, it’s not going anywhere.”  
  
Curiosity had chewed at Cassian like a hungry dog, but he had resisted the urge to prod. “I certainly hope so,” Was all he said.  
  
Over the course of the three-hour flight back to Yavin 4, Cassian had glanced over his shoulder a few times to keep an eye on Lynch, once or twice calling back to check on him. Even after all that had happened that day, even though Cassian himself was feeling pretty damn weary himself, Lynch did not once let his head droop or his eyes shut during the journey. Either he was less trusting of Cassian and K-2SO than previously believed, or he really wasn’t completely human.  
  
When they arrived at Yavin 4, Draven was waiting in the hangar to meet them.  
  
“Captain Andor,” he nodded, and then looked to Lynch (K-2SO, as usual, went unacknowledged, something that aggravated Cassian to no end). “Mr. Lynch. Forgive me, I don’t know what honorifics the Brotherhood uses.” Genial though he was, Draven’s tone never lost that business-like aspect to it.  
  
“Mister is fine,” Lynch responded with equal coolness. “You must be General Draven.” Cassian glanced at Lynch, trying to keep his expression neutral; he hadn’t said anything about Draven, or identified that he was a General. Looked like Cassian wasn’t the only person Lynch had intelligence on.  
  
If Draven had caught that- and he probably had- he gave no hint. “That I am. Does the Brotherhood know you’re here?”  
  
“They do, General.”  
  
“Good. Captain, take him to the medbay, we’ll debrief you both afterwards.”  
  
Cassian nodded, and wondered if their time in the medbay was going to be spent ensuring that no sensitive information was left out and about for a sticky-fingered Assassin to steal. Until the Alliance got to know and trust the Brotherhood and their members better, those would be the sort of precautions they would be forced to take when one was present.  
  
“Kay,” He asked as he led Lynch to the medbay, “Are you sure you’re alright? No injuries you need to report to the mechanics for?”  
  
K-2SO cocked his head. “I’m quite certain that I’m alright, Cassian. Unlike organics I have no interest in hiding or ignoring any physical damage to my body. I lack your human stubbornness.”  
  
Cassian gave a short, barking laugh at that. “Oh, that’s debatable, Kay. That’s debatable at best.”  
  
“ _I’m_ not the one who was stumbling down an alleyway, concussed, with two broken bones, gagging up blood and insisting that I could walk back to the ship on my own,” K-2SO retorted. He began dragging his leg in an exaggerated, comical manner. “Oh, I’m fine! I’m fine! Don’t mind my leg, there’s still a _small_ bit of skin holding it to my thigh!”  
  
Lynch chuckled. “Is that supposed to be me?”  
  
“It _is_ supposed to be you, Lynch. Why are humans so insistent on bleeding out and insisting that they’re fine when they’re _not?_ ”  
  
“Kay,” Cassian said, smiling, “Go prepare the report for General Draven. I’ll meet up with you in an hour.”  
  
“Whatever you say, Cassian,” K-2SO said in a way that Cassian interpreted as a sort of passive-aggressive surrender. “Whatever you say. I’ll prepare the report, you make sure the Assassin doesn’t lose his leg.” He took off towards Cassian’s quarters at an easy pace, and others in the hall stepped aside to let him pass.  
  
Lynch shook his head. “He’s a real character. Was he like that before you reprogrammed him?”  
  
Cassian shrugged. “I didn’t hear much from him before the reprogramming. I tried to make sure he had some personality and free will; I figured people would be more comfortable with him if he was someone they could speak to like anyone else.”  
  
“I’ll say. I’ve never seen a droid like him before.” Lynch paused. “You see him as a friend, don’t you? Not as your property?”  
  
Cassian was surprised by the question, if only because he thought he’d made the answer pretty clear by this point. “No, I don’t see him as property.” Pause. “Not a popular stance, I’m aware.”  
  
Lynch shrugged. “Popularity can be overrated.”  
  
Cassian meditated on that as one of the doctors began looking over Lynch’s leg. It made sense, really: The Assassins could have very easily insured ‘popularity’ with at least half the population during the Clone Wars by picking a side, but they’d chosen to stay neutral instead. He still wasn’t entirely sure what the official dogma of the Assassins was, but if they were against taking sides in the Clone Wars but willing to take a side now, they must have felt the situation warranted it. It was… Encouraging, but also sort of dreadful, because it meant that even _they_ acknowledged how bad things were.  
  
“You know,” Cassian said as Lynch’s leg was being wrapped in another, larger Bacta bandage, “You can take your hood down. Obviously no one’s going to be reporting you to the Empire here.”  
  
Lynch smiled wanly. “Defectors come in all shapes, sizes, and political alignments, Andor. I’ll take no chances, especially since I find that espionage is easier when people don’t know exactly what I look like.”  
  
Cassian granted Lynch the point; and practical reasons aside, more than a few people in the medbay (and in the hallways) had been blatantly gawking at the Assassin, so the hood also gave him some barrier against the staring. He changed the subject. “The debriefing shouldn’t take too long. They’ll probably just ask you to verify my report.”  
  
“You mean you guys don’t plan on holding me hostage and demanding that I spill the Brotherhood’s secrets?” Lynch feigned surprise. “What a wasted opportunity.”  
  
Cassian snorted. “What do you take us for, idiots? We jumped through too many hoops to get this alliance with your people; we’re not going to jeopardize it now.”  
  
“Good to know.” Lynch stood up, cautiously testing his leg. It wobbled slightly, and a few steps proved that he was still limping, though not as severely as before. “Off to the debriefing, then?”  
  
Draven was probably ready for them. Cassian motioned for Lynch to follow him, and they set off down the hall again, Cassian deliberately slowing his step as he had before so Lynch didn’t feel the need to hurt himself to keep up.  
  
“So…” Cassian drawled. “I have another question for you.”  
  
Lynch was right beside him, and the hood was still up, so Cassian couldn’t see his expression. “Shoot.”  
  
“Do the Assassins all live in one place, on one base or planet? Or are you spread out through the Empire?”  
  
Lynch chuckled. “No comment. I’m not in trouble _yet_ , and I’d rather not go there if I don’t have to.”  
  
“Fair enough. I suppose the backbone of the question was whether or not being an Assassin is a full-time profession, or if it’s something you’re called in to do from time to time.”  
  
Lynch nodded. “Fair enough,” he echoed. “It’s full-time. At least, it is for me. Most of us can’t really afford to live any other life; the Templars are still looking for us.”  
  
“You didn’t tell me what the Templars were before.”  
  
“Nothing you need to worry about.”  
  
That was, nearly word-for-word, the answer that Lynch had given him last time. Cassian was starting to suspect that it wasn’t that he didn’t _need_ to know who and what the Templars were so much as it was that Lynch didn’t _want_ him to know. He might have to do some digging on that later; it would be nice to have something on Lynch for once.  
  
Speaking of whom, Lynch seemed to suspect that the questions were going to keep coming and cut Cassian off at the pass. “You live your job too, I see. And what does a rebel do in their spare time on base? Target-practice? Reprogramming Imperial droids? Party with all of your Rebel friends and toast to the Emperor’s slow, painful, future death?”  
  
Cassian gave a wry smile. “There are parties sometimes, yes. Usually celebrations for successful missions or… Well, anything people can find in them to be happy about. I generally don’t go to them.” Generally, he stayed in his room and talked to K-2SO.  
  
“I guess that’s not too surprising. You don’t strike me as someone who has a lot of friends.”  
  
Cassian laughed, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do. What do you say to something like that?  
  
Lynch grimaced, shook his head. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I didn’t mean that as an insult, I just meant you, uh… Strike me as a man who’s too invested in his job to spend a lot of time socializing.”  
  
“Nice save,” Cassian remarked as he tried to pretend that the unintended truth of those words didn’t sting. In his defense, Lynch did look properly apologetic. “I’d be lying if I said you didn’t come off the same way.”  
  
Lynch shrugged. “You wouldn’t be wrong. There are a few Assassins I’m friendly with.” He was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t have a lot of friends before the Brotherhood. Hasn’t changed too much now.”  
  
Cassian had been the opposite: Before coming to the Rebel Alliance he had had a few friends in the extremist movements of his childhood and young adulthood. All of them were dead now, with holes blown in their heads or charred to a crisp. He had chosen not to make more; he wondered if Lynch was unwilling or unable to make friends. Cassian didn’t know what the life-expectancy of the average Assassin was, but he was willing to bet it wasn’t exactly high.  
  
They made it to the mission room, and Cassian slowed to a stop, looking into the dim area to locate Draven. He was in the center of the room, along with Mon Mothma. “Ready?” He asked Lynch.  
  
“Certainly. But-” Lynch turned and gave Cassian a very somber look. “-you’re not going to leave me alone with your boss, are you?”  
  
If it weren’t for the little spark of humor in his eyes after he said it, Cassian might have thought he was serious. The captain resisted the urge to smile.  
  
“Goodness, no. I wouldn’t do that to you.”  
  
Lynch smiled a small but genuine smile. “Thanks.”  
  
_I think I like him_ , Cassian thought, in spite of himself. _I think I actually like him._  
  
Damn it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t help but think of the Force Ghosts when I was planning this out, and the way Aguilar/the Bleeding Effect was portrayed in the movie… I mean, it sounded like an interesting parallel to draw.
> 
> …And also I really enjoy the idea that Aguilar is standing off to the side saying “OH GOD DON’T DO THAT” and “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU DON’T TURN YOUR BACK ON THAT GUY AND HIS MURDER-BOT”. That’s fun too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also: I don’t speak much Spanish, and there is some Spanish in this chapter, so if you notice any errors let me know.

Lynch returned to Yavin 4 a week later.  
  
And this time, he brought friends.  
  
“He’s brought four other Assassins with him,” Draven remarked as he and Cassian approached the hangar at a brisk pace. “Evidently they’ve followed up on the informant’s information and have something planned. They want us in on it.” He came to an abrupt stop, and Cassian stumbled slightly as he tried to as well. Draven looked him in the eye. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Andor, but it’s working: Lynch specifically requested that you be in on this. Whatever rapport you’ve struck with him, keep it up.” Draven’s words were pointed, eyebrows raised.  
  
Cassian chose not to examine the full implications of that statement. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been asked to get close to an ally- and ‘close’ could mean anything from ‘have a beer with them’ to ‘get into bed with them’.  
  
The first thing Cassian noticed was that the other Assassins were all cloaked and hooded just as Lynch was; but as he got closer, he saw that the patterns of the Assassins’ cloaks varied: Lynch’s cloak was dark blue, and looked like a greatcoat; the dark-skinned man beside him had a cloak of red and black, with small skull icons decorating his belt and a feather-coated sash that ran across his shoulder and chest; the older man beside him had a cloak of dark gold and blue, but with tiny, intricate patterns weaving over the sleeves and chest and hood; the youngest of the group, a boy who couldn’t have been much older than eighteen, wore a silver cloak with pale blue highlights and a large, decorative silver belt across his waist; the last Assassin was a woman, and like the dark-skinned man, her cloak was black and red- but it was much lighter than any of her male counterparts’ cloaks, with gold vines crawling over the black, and a long, red sash that looped around and hung from her waist.  
  
Lynch, who had been sitting on a crate full of blaster parts, stood up when he saw Draven and Cassian approaching. “Captain Andor, General Draven,” He greeted. “Good to see you again.”  
  
“Likewise, Lynch. I see you’ve brought friends.”  
  
Lynch nodded, gesturing to the other Assassins as he introduced them. “Moussa, Lin, Emir, and Nathan.”  
  
Lin, the woman, and Emir, the dark-haired man with the intricate cloak, were polite, but otherwise unreadable, much like Lynch had been when Cassian had first met him.  
  
Moussa, the dark-skinned man, had a wide smile that unnerved Cassian somewhat. He looked mischievous.  
  
Nathan, the young one, looked grumpy. He wasn’t even bothering to hide it. Cassian had seen that look before on young rebels with a chip on their shoulder, and they were usually the first ones to die in a fight.  
  
“Glad to have you,” Draven remarked with a short nod to each Assassin as they were introduced. “Mon Mothma’s waiting in the mission room; if you’ll follow me.”  
  
“How’s the leg?” Cassian asked Lynch quietly as they started off.  
  
“Better.”  
  
Moussa snickered. “Making friends already, Pioneer?”  
  
“Piss off, Moussa,” Lynch responded with a dull tone that said he’d told Moussa to piss off countless times in the past; it had the kind of familiarity that spoke… Not even of friendship, necessarily, but family; a bit like how Cassian felt about K-2SO.  
  
Speaking of the droid, he was waiting in the mission room with Mon Mothma and Bail Organa. The Assassins filed into the room and stood around the table like an imposing council of judges.  
  
Lynch immediately took the space next to Cassian- who was on the other side of Draven, which meant that Lynch had chosen to stand beside Cassian rather than with his fellow Assassins. The captain didn’t know what to make of that, exactly- he hoped it was a sign that Lynch definitely trusted him now; or at least liked him.  
**_  
Stop_** , Cassian warned himself. _Don’t go there. You can make friends when the Empire is ashes._ His brain was a traitorous thing: It recognized as well as Draven did that he’d struck up a good connection with Lynch and wanted to further it, wanted to make up for the fact that Cassian had, beyond his interactions with K-2SO, been starving himself of social contact for a long time.  
  
“Senators,” Draven greeted, ignoring K-2SO as was typical. It was personal: K-2SO, quote, ‘aggravated the living fuck’ out of Draven, and he didn’t make that fact a secret. “Welcome. Members of the Brotherhood of Assassins have been kind enough to join us today.”  
  
Mon Mothma smiled in her usual, soothing way. “A pleasure to finally meet you.”  
  
Bail Organa was similarly genial. “Good to make your acquaintance.”  
  
K-2SO blinked at the Assassins. “There are more of you.” He then turned to Cassian and said, not nearly quietly enough, “Was one mysterious professional killer on the base not sufficient for one week?”  
  
Moussa barked out a hyena-laugh.  
  
Cassian covered his eyes with both hands, shaking his head as Draven gave him a dark look. “I’m sorry,” He said wearily, “He tends to say whatever comes to mind.”  
  
“I like him!” Moussa cackled, throwing a look over his shoulder at Lin, who did not react.  
  
K-2SO looked at him. “I find your laughter to be extremely unnerving.”  
  
Moussa laughed even harder.  
  
“Andor,” Draven growled.  
  
“Kay,” Cassian hissed. “Shush.”  
  
K-2SO gave his version of a sigh, something that sounded like a piece of paper flapping against the blades of a small fan. But he didn’t say anything else.  
  
“We followed up on the information we received from the informant,” Emir began, and Cassian could just _hear_ K-2SO thinking ‘The information _I_ received from the informant, thank you very much’, “And we believe we may have a chance to disable two key construction factories on Jenoport.”  
  
Lin stepped forward with a datachip, which she handed over to Mon Mothma. When the chip had been inserted into the computer, several pictures and a set of building plans appeared in the middle of the table. “The informant’s son is acquainted with the head of security for Jenoport’s Imperial factory installations: He travels regularly between the two major factories in the eastern and western hemispheres, and has a keycard that can access- to our understanding- every room in the buildings.”  
  
“What do the factories produce?” Senator Organa asked.  
  
“AT-AT walkers.” Moussa’s smile was grim now. “They’re exclusively dedicated to AT-AT walker software and parts. Take them out, and the Empire’s gonna find themselves strained for resources as far as those fuckin’ behemoths are concerned.” Lin jabbed him sharply between the shoulder-blades, and Moussa turned rolled his eyes at Lin. “Sorry- those _flipping_ behemoths. Happy now?”  
  
Lin rolled her eyes shut in response.  
  
“The point,” Emir concluded, “Is that we’re planning on taking the factories down. A few well-placed bombs will do the trick.”  
  
“But first,” Lynch finally spoke up, “We have to get the master keycard from the head of security.” He turned to Cassian. “I was hoping you might help me with that while these guys scout out the factories.”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Cassian detected movement from Moussa again- he was looking back at Lin and whispering something. Only after an additional moment to process the question did Cassian nod somewhat distractedly. “Right. Sure. I…” He looked to Draven. “You approve, General?”  
  
“Certainly.” Draven didn’t even hesitate.  
  
“Once we have the keycard, we’re going to copy it so there’s a set for use in each facility- we’ve figure the Empire thought ahead this time and only allowed the security head to carry one so that only one facility could be compromised at a time-” Emir explained, “-then Lynch and, ideally, Captain Andor and K-2SO-”  
  
“How do you know my name?” K-2SO interrupted, sounding almost offended.  
  
“I told them,” Lynch responded swiftly before Draven could.  
  
“As I was saying,” Emir continued, unperturbed, “Lynch, Andor, and K-2SO will take one factory, and Moussa and Nathan will take the other.”  
  
Cassian glanced at the youngest man. He still looked grumpy, and Cassian felt somewhat skeptical about sending him out on such a sensitive mission; but, in fairness, he had never seen Nathan work before. It was entirely possible that a proficient Assassin lurked beneath the disagreeable surface.  
  
“Emir and I will be disabling the communications tower,” Lin finished. “The longer backup takes to arrive, the more damage will be done to the factories.”  
  
“Were you planning on requisitioning any other Alliance resources, or were you just interested in Captain Andor and his droid?” Draven asked.  
  
“For this mission, we’d only like Captain Andor and K-2SO- and whatever ship they usually use. We’d like to keep our methods of transportation as quiet as possible for the time-being. If the Alliance finds any opportunity or advantage in the destruction of the factories, you’re free to capitalize on them.” And again, Cassian was struck by the fact that Lin, like Lynch and Emir, referred to K-2SO by his name rather than ‘the droid’. “But the Brotherhood would like to discuss further collaboration once this mission is over.”  
  
Mon Mothma offered another one of her enigmatic smiles. “And the Alliance is, as before, eager to arrange further collaboration with the Brotherhood. If there’s nothing else, I would like to discuss how the Alliance might best be able to contact the Brotherhood in the event of an emergency.”  
  
Lin and Emir stepped aside to speak to Mon Mothma, Senator Organa, and Draven. Moussa thumped Nathan on the shoulder and said something inaudible; Lynch nodded to Cassian with a small smile and walked over to them.  
  
“Lynch,” Cassian called, and the other man stopped and looked back. “When were we leaving?”  
  
“Soon as possible,” Lynch said. “Apparently this guy spends every night in the same bar.” He smiled slightly. “Didn’t get the message that routine is a bad idea for guys like him.” Cassian found himself smiling back.  
  
He and K-2SO left the mission room and gathered their supplies in short order. K-2SO wasn’t coming with him to get the keycard; he would be spending the evening running diagnostics to make sure he was ready for the factory mission. Cassian managed to snag some new data to supplement K-2SO’s operating systems- not enough to cover the extent of the updates the KX droids had been given, but enough that he might be able to fake it in a pinch.  
  
“Kay,” Cassian said they moved down the hallway, pulling his pack on. “Come here.”  
  
K-2SO moved a little faster so he could keep pace with the captain. “Yes?”  
  
Cassian lowered his voice. “¿Confías en ellos?”  
  
He didn’t speak Festian much anymore, mostly because it had been years since he’d been on his home-planet and there weren’t many people he knew who spoke it. Galactic Standard was what most everyone in the Rebellion used on a regular basis, and the ones who didn’t were in the process of learning it fluently. But K-2SO had thousands of languages programmed into him, and he understood Festian just fine, which was useful when Cassian didn’t want to be understood by anyone but him. And on some small level, it felt nice to speak for Cassian to speak his native tongue every now and then.  
  
K-2SO waited, probably changing his internal dictionary over to Festian. “No completamente,” he responded.  
  
Cassian had expected that. “Confío en Lynch. No conozco a los otros lo suficientemente bien para juzgar.” Cassian liked to think the other Assassins were trustworthy if Lynch considered them to be, but then, how did he know how Lynch trusted them at all? For all he knew, he neither liked nor trusted them very well, but was unwilling to betray that to Cassian or Draven. “Cuidado con ellos. Si se comportan sospechosamente, dímelo inmediatamente.”  
  
K-2SO nodded. “Si.”  
  
They arrived in the hangar, where the Assassins had reconvened. Cassian recalled Lin’s remark in the meeting, about how the Brotherhood wanted to “keep their methods of transportation quiet for the time-being”, and wondered what she’d meant by that when he looked around and couldn’t see any unrecognizable ships. And he probably wouldn’t be finding out today, since they would be taking Cassian’s usual ship for the mission.  
  
As they approached, Cassian saw that Moussa was bothering Lin again: He was as animated as before, and she was as disinterested.  
  
Except…  
  
Except that Lin wasn’t looking at Moussa. She had her head turned and was watching Nathan as he scowled at an X-Wing, studying the ship. And upon closer inspection, her mouth was not moving in response to whatever Moussa was saying, despite the fact that the man was pausing occasionally as though he was receiving a response.  
  
It hit Cassian all at once: Moussa wasn’t talking to Lin.  
  
He was talking to the air next to her.  
  
[---]  
  
Dive bars, it seemed, were becoming a theme for Cassian and Lynch.  
  
This one was marginally better than the one they’d first met in, being better lit and less crowded. The atmosphere and clientele were no less shady, however, and Cassian felt better once his back was against a wall and he could keep a close eye on the other patrons.  
  
He was near to _dying_ to ask Lynch about Moussa; it hadn’t occurred to him that other Assassins might have a… Well, an Aguilar as well. But he kept quiet for now. It was far too likely that someone might overhear them and realize that they were sitting in the presence of an Assassin and a Rebel, and that would send the whole mission bottoms-up in record-time.  
  
“That’s him.” Lynch nodded to a man in a corner on the opposite side of the bar. It was interesting: The bar wasn’t full to bursting, but it was decently occupied- and no one had taken up the table in the corner. Cassian had the feeling that everyone knew the seat belonged to an employee of the Empire. “Eloxo Davarian. Right on time.”  
  
Eloxo Davarian was a human, about forty, with black hair and blue eyes. Even without the Imperial uniform, reflecting his lower rank, Cassian recognized his bearing and demeanor as the same sort of man he’d seen a thousand times when he’d been undercover as an Imperial a few years back (that was how he’d met K-2SO).  
  
“Did you have a plan on how to get the keycard?” He whispered into his drink.  
  
Lynch frowned. “Not yet. I’m trying to balance out the odds of someone seeing us with how easy it would be to grab it from his pocket. But that would require getting in really close and knowing which pocket he’s keeping it in. I’m a pretty good pick-pocket, but generally speaking, trying to do it twice doesn’t usually end well, and it’s empty enough in here that he’ll notice and remember me if I keep getting too close to him.”  
  
“He’s probably been trained to resist pick-pocketing, too. Any Imperial officers or employees are trained to recognize when someone’s paying too much attention to them, or to check their pockets after they’ve bumped into someone.” However, those protocols were put in place for officers who had odd encounters with strangers, and Cassian’s brain was starting to map out a plan that might subvert that.  
  
“Right. You went undercover as an Imperial a while back, didn’t you?”  
_  
Oh my **God**._ Cassian gritted his teeth, plotting momentarily interrupted. He briefly entertained the idea of tying Lynch to a chair and forcing him to tell him how the _fuck_ he had all of this information. It was weird enough that he knew Cassian’s name and age, but now he knew about a covert mission that had been done years ago?  
  
“Anyway, it’s just a matter of finding a way to get at the guy’s pockets without him getting suspicious. Actually, nearly forgot-” Lynch patted his pocket. “-I have a fake keycard. We can switch this one out for the other one. We just have to get to the other one first.”  
  
“So you’ve said.” Cassian drummed his fingers on the table. He had finally settled on a feasible plan- not one he was in love with, honestly, but it could work. “What planet is he from?”  
  
“Anaxes, I think.”  
  
“You think,” Cassian repeated, fingers still drumming.  
  
Lynch frowned. “Can I take it that whatever it is you’re planning hinges on him being from Anaxes?”  
  
Cassian continued rapping his fingers on the table, eyes locked on Davarian. “Yes… and no.”  
  
His plan was, in theory, simple: Cassian was going to seduce him.  
  
In practice, it could become a bit more complicated.  
  
Men were always difficult to seduce. In some parts of the galaxy male-on-male relationships were considered utterly unremarkable; there were some planets where reproduction occurred only between two members of the same sex.  
  
And in other parts of the galaxy, they were considered a very serious taboo- the kind of taboo where you could get shot if they even suspected that you were looking at a member of your own sex in an impure way. And unless one could readily identify a person as being part of a particular culture and _know_ that culture’s views on homosexuality, one ran the risk of seriously pissing off the person they were intending to seduce.  
  
Cassian had made that mistake once before, and now it was rare for him to attempt seduction unless he’d had a chance to do at least a basic background check on the person he meant to seduce.  
  
Anaxes was, if Cassian recalled correctly, a planet that was generally accepting of homosexuality- or at least, they had no hostility towards it.  
  
But the plan hinged on the idea that this seduction would go smoothly. If Lynch was wrong, and Davarian wasn’t Anaxarian and hailed from a planet with very negative views on homosexuality- or if he _was_ an Anaxarian who just happened to have some sort of hang-up about sleeping with men- it would end with a big, ugly scene and they’d lose their chance at getting the keycard.  
  
Cassian heaved a sigh.  
_  
Please don’t let this get fucked,_ he thought. It wasn’t a prayer to the Force so much as it was a pitiful plea to any and all passing deities that might be interested in giving him a hand. He leaned over, as close as he could to Lynch without it looking suspicious. “Give me the fake keycard. I’m going to go over to Davarian and… Get friendly with him.” He raised an eyebrow pointedly.  
  
Lynch did not visibly react. “Okay.”  
  
“When I do this-” Cassian held up three fingers. “-that means I want you to step out of the bar, and then comm me. Say that a situation has come up at work and you need me back immediately. Sound as aggressive as you need. Just give me an excuse to get away from him- and _actually_ say the words, alright? I don’t need him overhearing you saying anything else and getting suspicious.” He swallowed. “But don’t leave until I signal. Keep an eye on his hands and make sure he doesn’t pull a blaster or a knife on me.” It wouldn’t be the first time.  
  
Lynch nodded. “Of course.” He slipped the keycard to Cassian. “Good luck.”  
  
“Thanks.” Cassian took a deep breath, taking off his jacket and pulling the top of his shirt open to expose his throat and collarbone better. Obviously he wasn’t wearing his usual Captain’s attire, and he was glad to have picked something that would give him a chance to expose himself a little more.  
  
He grabbed his drink, stood up, and started over towards the security head’s table- a table which, thankfully, was located next to the hallway where the bathrooms were. Cassian waited until he was nearly at the table, and then pretended to catch his foot on the leg of a nearby chair, sending him crashing to the ground. His drink fell out of his hand, splashing liquid everywhere (Cassian was privately shocked that the glass actually stayed intact- usually places like this had crappy tableware that broke without much stress at all).  
  
Davarian jumped, alarmed at the sudden movement and sound, jerking his legs away as the liquid splattered the table and floor near him.  
  
“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” Cassian gasped, jumping to his feet and grabbing the glass. “I didn’t get anything on you, did I?” He bit his lip in feigned apology.  
  
Cassian was so very accustomed to things going wrong. Something always went bad, whether it was a lack of information that led to a misstep, or false information that sent them to the wrong room in the wrong facility, or trooper interference, or… Anything. Anything and everything could go wrong, and usually at least _one_ thing did.  
  
So it never ceased to amaze him when things went so perfectly _right_ : Because Davarian was looking him up and down with unmasked interest. “It’s perfectly alright,” he said, leaning back somewhat in his seat. “You here with anyone?”  
  
Cassian blushed, and quietly prayed that the man wouldn’t remember seeing him sitting with Lynch. “No.”  
  
Davarian gave a small, dark smirk. “Have a seat.”  
  
Cassian had seduced enough people in his time to know that no two seductions were exactly the same: It was a constant dance, reacting to the individual’s particular attitude and movements and sentiments; making sure he looked interested, but not _too_ interested; having to pepper in small doses of physical and sexual interest to lure the person in, trying not to make it obvious that he was _trying_ to cloud their minds with sex.  
  
But there was, in a way, a certain similarity in every (successful) seduction: First the small-talk, the time where Cassian laid out the character he was portraying for the target’s sake; then there was the transition period where they started to get closer and closer, putting their hands on him in a way that wasn’t quite sexual, but was going in that direction; and then, finally, Cassian would lean into those touches until they decided to kiss or grope him. That was important: It had to be _them_ that initiated the sexual aspect of the encounter. For Cassian to initiate might tip them off that it had been his intention the entire time, especially in retrospect, and he only did so in moments when he was confident that things were going the way he needed them to.  
  
The seduction of Davarian went just about along that pattern.  
  
Cassian quickly figured out that these routine visits to the bar probably occasionally yielded a sexual encounter for Davarian, because he seemed to be perfectly at home with flirting with a man who, almost literally, had stumbled right onto his lap. He moved a lot faster than the usual mark: Cassian was surprised to find the man nudging his chair closer to Cassian’s in only a matter of minutes. He moved fast; maybe this wouldn’t take long at all.  
  
At some point, just as Cassian had hoped, Davarian initiated physical contact, a hand on Cassian’s knee that evolved into a hand on his thigh, and Cassian danced the dance so well that it didn’t even surprise him when he felt Davarian’s teeth scraping his neck. He shivered, curling the fingers of one hand into the man’s jacket as his eyes rolled shut; the other began creeping towards Davarian’s right-hand pocket. At this point, it wasn’t even necessarily an act: If the mark was sufficiently attractive, Cassian reacted to their attentions like anyone else might. It was just a matter of not becoming distracted.  
  
But for a moment, Cassian was.  
  
Because it occurred to him that Lynch was less than thirty feet away, watching this all unfold with sharp eyes, watching out for any potential sign of aggression from Davarian. Unless, of course, he had looked away out of a sense of awkwardness, or out of respect Cassian’s privacy. But that seemed unlikely, given that Lynch struck him as the consummate professional who could overlook embarrassment or discomfort when it was required of him.  
  
Davarian chose that moment to lean in closer as he worked on Cassian’s throat with his mouth, and Cassian leaned back to expose more skin. He opened his eyes.  
  
Lynch was looking right at him.  
  
Not at Davarian; at _Cassian_.  
  
There was heat and intensity and something else in his eyes that Cassian couldn’t quite pin down.  
  
And when he saw Cassian looking back, he didn’t look away.  
  
Cassian had always prided himself on keeping his downstairs brain quiet when he needed it to be, but now it ran wild. Lynch had a nice face. And from the fluid, experienced way he fought, he was probably well-muscled under that cloak. An image came to mind unbidden: Lynch pinning him to the table and grinding their hips together, Cassian yanking the hood off and threading his hands through Lynch’s hair, reciprocating eagerly and gasping when Lynch kissed deeply, with teeth as much as lips-  
  
When Cassian choked out a small, squeaking moan, it had less to do with Davarian’s attentions than it did his little fantasy.  
  
“You like this?” Davarian crooned, and Cassian nodded, sighing.  
  
“Yeah,” He mumbled, dragging himself back to reality and squeezing Davarian’s hip to feel for-  
  
Jackpot.  
  
If not for his deep dedication to the Rebellion, Cassian might not have been able to climb onto Davarian’s lap and start kissing him passionately in plain view of the bar’s other patrons with a straight face. Even as a hormone and passion-driven teenager he’d  
never been fond of excessive public displays of affection. “Maybe,” He whispered, keeping his face tantalizingly close as he spoke, “We should go somewhere else?”  
  
Davarian grinned. “Absolutely.”  
  
Cassian climbed off of his lap and- under the guise of straightening his pants- deftly removed the fake keycard from his pocket. When Davarian stood, Cassian pressed in close, distracting him with a deep kiss and fingers pressing deeply into his upper thigh to distract him from the feeling of the keycard being removed and replaced in his pocket. Mission accomplished.  
  
Cassian pocketed the keycard and flashed Lynch the signal, then broke the kiss and smiled sweetly up at Davarian. “My place or yours? I’ll warn you, mine is a little further away, and I-”  
  
Right on cue, Cassian’s communicator went off. He made a show of rolling his eyes. “Sorry,” He grunted. “That’s me. Just a minute.” He picked up the communicator. “Hello?”  
  
On the other end of the line, Lynch cleared his throat. “Need you at work.”  
  
Cassian almost wanted to laugh; he’d met some bad actors in his life- K-2SO was at the top of the list- but that was just _terrible_. If Lynch had been standing here in person, it would have tipped off Davarian immediately that something was up. Fortunately, Lynch’s little script was strictly designed to cover in the event that Davarian accidentally overheard. “You’re kidding me, right?”  
  
“No. Get out here.” The line went dead.  
  
Cassian rolled his eyes, and it wasn’t completely an act. He was going to have to have a chat with Lynch later about his acting skills. He turned and faced Davarian with a moody pout. “My boss wants me at work. I have to go or he’ll have my ass.”  
  
“Not before I do, I hope,” Was the throaty response.  
  
Cassian grinned slyly. “I’ll give you my information.”  
  
That, too, was a typical part of the dance: Cassian had a variety of falsified locations, names, and contact information memorized in the event he ever needed to mislead someone about his life and home; he updated them from time to time so that the Empire didn’t start to notice a pattern. It took nearly ten minutes of carefully trying to extract himself from Davarian, not wanting to seem eager to leave but also nervous that Lynch might come looking if Cassian didn’t leave the bar soon.  
  
Finally, after one more coy promise for fun later on once he’d taken care of his work problem, Cassian managed to pry himself away from Davarian and slip out of the bar. It was only once he was outside and the cold air met his skin that he realized how hot it was in the bar.  
  
Or maybe that was just him.  
  
Lynch melted out of the late-day shadows near the building and came to Cassian’s side. “You alright?” There was definitely some huskiness to his voice, and his eyes were as dark as they’d been in the bar.  
  
Cassian’s blood was still hot, still pounding in his ears, and his erection hadn’t quite managed to die down yet. It took everything in him to resist propositioning Lynch then and there. There was a bunk in the ship, and it wasn’t as though a handful of minutes of fun would send the Rebellion and the Assassins into a panic wondering where they’d gone.  
_  
You have a job to do,_ Cassian reminded himself. _You have a job to do, now is not the time for distractions, get things done and jack off in your bunk later._  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” He nodded. “I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re okay to fly?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Alright.” Lynch moved off at a slow, heavy pace towards the ship. Cassian followed after him, breathing deeply and trying so damn hard to keep his head. It wasn’t often that he got carried away enough to lose sight of his main objective; that was why he was valued as an Intelligence agent as much as he was. But for whatever reason, this idea, this particular temptation was more difficult to dismiss than the usual urges. It took a fifteen minute walk to the ship for Cassian arousal to calm down, and by then he was able to completely and utterly dismiss the idea of propositioning Lynch and banish the flashes of inappropriate pictures from his mind.  
  
As they got onto the ship, with his blood cooled and a clear head, Cassian realized with a heavy bit of regret that propositioning Lynch would be a terrible idea. He’d seen it happen before, partners and coworkers and friends becoming sexually involved, only for some complication or argument to arise. Then there would be the ugly, bad break-up, followed by the unwillingness to speak or even look at one another, which then compromised an otherwise effective mission team. Draven and other commanders had chewed people out for allowing personal feelings to compromise the larger picture of the Rebellion on more than one occasion. Cassian had never received such a lecture because he never _did_ things like that.  
  
Starting now would be a bad idea.  
  
[---]  
  
Cassian noticed it about halfway through the flight.  
  
Lynch was in the co-pilot’s seat. For the moment there was nothing terribly necessary to be done beyond monitoring the controls, and Lynch had been leaning back in his seat. In the space of a few minutes, however, his posture had grown tense, and his fingers slid up under his hood to rub his temple.  
  
“Are you alright?” Cassian asked, but there was no response. He let it go for a moment or two, but his concern grew when Lynch leaned forward in the chair, pressing his hands to his head. “Lynch, are you alright? Do you need-?”  
  
All at once, Cassian saw a thin stream of blood falling down the man’s face; it was coming from his nose. Lynch didn’t seem to notice: His breathing had grown shallow, and he had come as close as he could to curling into the fetal position in the co-pilot’s chair. Lynch made a small, choked sound, like a whimper- and then the stream of blood turned into a river, and he started coughing and gasping.  
  
“Shit!” Cassian adjusted the controls to autopilot and unbuckled himself from the chair. The first thing he did was rotate the co-pilot’s chair so that Lynch could get up and move; then he hurried to the medical kit hanging from the cabin’s wall. By now, Lynch had slid out of his seat and was gagging on the floor, bits of blood and saliva falling from his mouth and nose to the floor.  
  
Cassian pulled a sanitized cloth from the kit. It was designed to act as a tourniquet in emergency situations, as well as absorb large amounts of blood. He carefully pushed the cloth to Lynch’s face and nose, concerned about accidentally suffocating him. Lynch spent another five minutes or so coughing and gagging, one hand braced on Cassian’s thigh to keep him from toppling over. Cassian didn’t bother speaking until the gagging had slowed to a stop and Lynch gently pushed the cloth away, breathing heavily.  
  
“Sorry,” Lynch rasped, then convulsively gagged one more time. “The blood- It really gets to the back of your throat.”  
  
“What was that?” Cassian asked. “What happened? Did you… I mean, you’re not hurt, right?” The question felt stupid; obviously Lynch wasn’t hurt. There was no opportunity for him to have been hurt, and Cassian would have noticed if something had happened back at the bar.  
  
Lynch took the cloth from Cassian with a shaking hand, carefully wiping at the remaining blood and saliva on his face with the parts of it that were still clean. “It was a Bleed,” He responded.  
  
“Yes, that part I noticed,” Cassian said.  
  
“No, I mean…” Lynch waved his hand vaguely. “It was an Aguilar thing. Sometimes our minds kind of… _Bleed_ together.” He motioned with the blood-soaked cloth. “And sometimes that means that I start bleeding, literally: Nosebleeds, migraines, and my spine-” He paused to wipe a tiny drop of blood that leaked from his nose. “-my spine gets fucked up too. It’s hard to explain.” He sighed, and it was as shaky as the rest of him. “It actually wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sometimes there are seizures.”  
  
Cassian’s eyes widened. “How often do these _‘Bleeds’_ happen, exactly?”  
  
Lynch waved a hand. “Not very often anymore. This is the first time in months that it’s happened; haven’t had a seizure for nearly a year.” He looked directly at Cassian. Apart from the smears of blood that were still around his mouth and nose, the captain noticed that his eyes were a little cloudy. “How do I look? Is there still blood all over my face, or did I get most of it?”  
  
“There’s still some there. Here, let me.” Cassian took the cloth from Lynch and took it to the ’fresher; thankfully, the cloth was also built to wash easily with only a small bit of water, and it retained just enough that Cassian was able to hand it back to Lynch to wash his face with.  
  
The Assassin had backed up, leaning against the wall of the cabin, and accepted the cloth gratefully. “Thanks,” he muttered. “And sorry if I scared you. The Bleeds hurt like a motherfucker, but they won’t kill me.” Lynch’s voice lacked that confident quality Cassian was coming to expect from him, and that was not reassuring.  
  
After all, the Bleeds themselves may not kill him, but they certainly could be responsible for his death if they happened in the middle of a fight.  
  
“Do you need to see a doctor? I can radio ahead and let them know-” But Lynch was already shaking his head.  
  
“There’s nothing they can do about it. This is just a side-effect of the Templars fucking with my brain, and no amount of medical intervention can fix the damage. Besides,” He glanced up, presumably to where Aguilar was standing nearby. Cassian had completely forgotten about the strange hallucination/specter; it was unnerving to recall that technically there was a third person with them at all times. “I like Aguilar enough to keep him around.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Love you too, Aguilar,” Lynch responded to the silence with a smirk. To Cassian he said, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about this. Like I said, there’s nothing anyone can do about it, and it’s not something that interferes with my work. This probably won’t happen again.”  
  
The thing was, Lynch didn’t know Cassian quite well enough to know that words like ‘probably’ and ‘maybe’ and ‘oh yeah, sometimes I get _seizures_ ’ were not words that calmed him down or reassured him in any fucking capacity. The man seemed so strangely unconcerned about the fact that he could have a seizure whilst running away from a Stormtrooper, or while performing an assassination. Did he not grasp the potential risks here?  
  
“Alright,” Cassian said, despite his misgivings, because really, what could he do about it? Draven would be troubled, but Cassian clearly recognized the General’s desire to maintain a good relationship with the Brotherhood. And if the Brotherhood, who was presumably aware of Lynch’s medical concerns when choosing him for this role, trusted Lynch to get the job done, then it was for a reason. Complaining would be pointless, especially since Cassian was a relative stranger to Lynch and the Brotherhood in general. And trying to tell any of Lynch’s fellow Assassins would likely backfire, since they would probably report to Lynch immediately, either with concerns or to tell him that the Captain Andor had rat him out.  
  
He suspected it would be more of the latter, since clearly Lynch didn’t want him repeating the incident to anyone else. “Is there anything I can do to… Did I do everything correctly? Is there something in particular I can do to help if it happens again?”  
  
Lynch smiled a small, tight smile. “You did everything fine. And like I said, it really shouldn’t happen again.”  
  
Cassian nodded, and then got up to check the controls. They were still en route to Yavin 4, no indicator of any Imperial ships between them and their destination. He looked back to Lynch, who hadn’t moved from his spot against the wall. “I have the controls,” Cassian said, “If you need to lie down for a while.”  
  
Lynch shook his head and slowly began to rise from the floor. “I’m fine. I can take co-pilot again.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah.”  
  
That was a lie. That was a blatant, blatant lie, because Lynch was still looking pretty pale, and there was a shade of exhaustion in his eyes, the kind you got from going through something draining, physical or otherwise. But the Assassin hauled himself into the co-pilot’s seat and buckled in with movements that were only slightly clumsy, and Cassian quietly sat down again as well. This time he didn’t put his belt on, just in case he needed to rush out of his seat again, just in case the next episode included a seizure that might cause Lynch to hurt himself.  
_  
This_ , Cassian told himself as he felt a small pulse of fear at the possibility, _is the natural reaction a person has to watching a coworker start spewing blood. This is a normal reaction. Normal, normal, normal, and nothing to do with the fact that Lynch is the first extended, **human** social contact I’ve had in, literally, years. I am not a desperate child pleading for friendship on the playground. I am a functioning… I am an adult._  
_  
And it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that I wanted to jump his bones earlier._  
  
Nope. Stop. Not going down that road.  
  
“What triggers it?” Of all of the distractions he could have come up with to get him away from his more sinful thoughts, that one was maybe the least tactful.  
  
Cassian didn’t know why he was so interested in blatantly digging into Lynch’s head ( _yes you do, you like him,_ came the traitorous little voice in his head that he immediately silenced), especially since he was usually smarter about his attempts at gathering intelligence. Maybe it was because despite Lynch’s vagueness and secretiveness in many areas, he was relatively open about other things, like Aguilar; granted, it was also entirely possible that Cassian _asking_ about Aguilar first might have pushed him to decide that keeping his invisible protector secret was pointless.  
  
( _Or maybe he likes **you**_ , the voice piped up again.)  
  
“The Bleeds?” Lynch rubbed his forehead. Cassian couldn’t help but notice that he was going out of his way to keep the hood on, sliding his hand beneath the fabric instead of just pulling it down for better access. “My brain’s messed up from whatever Ab- from whatever the Templars were doing to it. I’ve got Aguilar’s… _Everything_ overlapping with _my_ everything, if that makes sense. I forget the word for it.”  
  
“Cognitive dissonance?” Cassian supplied.  
  
Lynch nodded absently. “Yeah, that’s it. I’ll see something, hear something, or… Well, something happens, and my memories or thoughts start overlapping with Aguilar’s, and my brain gets confused trying to parse out what’s him and what’s me, and it overheats.”  
  
“Seizes, you mean,” Cassian muttered.  
  
“There were a lot of those at first. They tapered off eventually.” Lynch slid him a look. “Seriously, you don’t need to worry. I haven’t had one in ages.”  
  
“‘Nearly a year’, those were your exact words,” Cassian retorted, flashing Lynch a tight smile.  
  
“Besides,” Lynch continued, “The Bleeds are usually a lot less violent. You probably won’t even notice them unless you’re paying attention.”  
  
“I think I’ll notice if you get a nosebleed,” Cassian snorted.  
  
Lynch’s grin was a thin, tired thing. “The Bleed comes when my brain can’t find a way to make sense of the information it’s getting from two separate minds. Sometimes it _does_ find a way to make sense of it.”  
  
Cassian frowned. “Meaning…?”  
  
“Let’s just say that if I ever get really quiet, or really grumpy, or really… _Solemn,_ I guess is what I’m going for, chances are you’re seeing pieces of Aguilar coming through.”  
  
“You mean you _become_ him?”  
  
Lynch shrugged awkwardly. “Yes and no. I’m still me. It’s just my brain rewiring itself to fit the way Aguilar… _is_ in certain situations.”  
  
Cassian shook his head in disbelief, briefly flipping through his interactions with Lynch and wondering who he’d been speaking to on each occasion. The dissonance between the man in the bar and the man he and K-2SO had met in the forest suddenly made sense: He’d thought that maybe Lynch had been cautious, guarding himself before a deal could be truly sealed, but maybe it was technically Aguilar who’d been playing the calm, cool negotiator. “You know, for an Assassin, you’re awfully _open_ about the whole ‘sharing a brain with your ancestor’ thing.”  
  
Now Lynch grinned. “And for a Rebel Intelligence Captain, _you_ were awfully quick to offer up your name to a guy in a cloak in a backwoods dive bar.” He laughed lowly when Cassian’s cheeks reddened.  
  
“I was being polite. You were an important potential ally. Besides, you gave me your name as well.”  
  
“You gave me your _full name_. At least I only gave you my last name.”  
  
“Well _apparently_ you already _knew_ my full name, since you- Wait, so Lynch is your real name? I assumed it was a pseudonym.”  
  
“My family name, yeah.”  
  
Cassian cocked an eyebrow at that. “So what’s your first one?”  
  
The grin grew a little, became mischievous. “I’m sure I’ll tell you at some point.”  
  
Cassian huffed a chuckle and shook his head again.  
_  
Bastard._  
  
( _You like him and you know it._ )  
  
[---]  
  
On Yavin 4, Cassian pulled Lynch into an empty room and called for Draven to confirm the plans for tomorrow. There was currently a meeting going on in the mission room, which Draven was attending.  
  
Lynch seemed to be fully recovered by the time they returned to the base. The minor, sporadic nosebleeds had come to a halt, and he’d gotten most of his color back. Still, the idea that Lynch was prone to these alarming episodes made Cassian nervous, and he frequently snuck glances at the other man to make sure that he was still in good enough health to keep going.  
  
“Alright,” Lynch, who seemed determined to forget that the episode had ever happened, dropped the keycard onto the table. “We have the location of the factory, and we have a way to get in. We just need to duplicate the keycard and hand the copy off to Moussa and Nathan. They’ll take the factory on the western hemisphere, you, me, and Kay will be taking the one on the eastern hemisphere.”  
  
“Right.”  
  
Lynch looked to the door. “You called Draven?”  
  
“Yes,” Cassian confirmed. “He should be here soon. He’s in a meeting.”  
  
Lynch paused, staring at the door, until he finally turned back to Cassian. “There is one thing I want to clarify with you.” Lynch chewed his lip for a moment. “We’re blowing up a factory. I assume most of the production staff is droids, but there’s evidence that there are organics in the factory too. Intelligence puts most of them as being civilians.” He was quiet for a moment.  
  
Cassian felt a familiar cramping setting into his stomach. The Alliance made a concentrated effort not to harm civilians; it was smaller, extremist groups like Saw Garrera’s that were less picky about endangering innocent lives. But sometimes they couldn’t always prevent injury or death. It had happened on Cassian’s watch before, and it was one of many things that kept him awake at night.  
  
“You’re telling me that we might end up with civilian casualties.”  
  
“I’m saying…” Lynch began. He hesitated, looking down at his hands on the table. “Do you know what the Creed is?”  
  
Cassian blinked. “Pardon?”  
  
“The Creed. The Assassin’s Creed. It’s the code the Brotherhood of Assassins is supposed to live by. I know a lot of public information about the Brotherhood is pretty obscure, but do you know it?”  
  
Cassian thought for a moment. The ‘Creed’ sounded familiar, but he couldn’t recall anything further. “No.”  
  
“The first tenet says ‘stay your blade from the flesh of the innocent’.” Lynch met Cassian’s eyes again, and there was a deep intensity to them. “I didn’t lie in the bar, Cassian. I’ve killed people. But I don’t kill innocent people.” He licked his lips nervously. “You and K-2SO are going to set the bombs. And once you’ve given me the signal that they’re in place, I’m going to trip the alarm. The workers will be evacuated, and the Imperials and Stormtroopers will sweep in to do a security check. _Then_ the bombs go off.”  
  
Cassian looked at Lynch pointedly. “You didn’t mention that part of the plan to General Draven.”  
  
“No, I didn’t.” Lynch’s eyes bored into his, and he lowered his voice. “I trust you,” He said softly. “You aren’t the kind of person to wantonly let civilians burn to further the cause.”  
  
Cassian swallowed, and he suddenly, _savagely_ hoped that Lynch never learned about the sort of things he’d had to do for the Rebellion. “Neither is Draven.”  
  
“No offense,” Lynch replied carefully, “But I don’t fully trust Draven. Not yet. And I suspect the feeling is mutual from you and him towards my brothers.” Lynch looked at him pointedly, and Cassian swallowed nervously again.  
  
“You’re not entirely wrong,” Cassian admitted.  
  
Lynch’s lips quirked into a thin smile. “Moussa and Nathan are going to evacuate the civilians before the bombs go off too. If everything goes well, the only people to die tomorrow will be Stormtroopers and Imperial officers.” The smile faded. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, please don’t tell Draven, or anyone else.”  
  
Cassian understood the logic: Draven was no more eager to shed blood than Cassian was, but, in the General’s words, “This is war. It’s hell. People die, and sometimes we can’t do anything about that.” All the same, it didn’t make Cassian feel any less guilty when it happened.  
  
Draven was not a cruel man, not at all: But he was a man who saw the bigger picture, the threat posed to billions and trillions of lives as opposed to the threat that was now being placed on a relatively miniscule handful of people A plan that did not request, but _demand_ that the safety of civilians be put as top priority to the exclusion of all other ends would make him uneasy when the stakes were far higher.  
  
But if Cassian knew Draven- and he did, the man was the one who’d pulled him out of a separatist group that might have had him performing a suicide bombing in the near future- what would be most concerning to Draven was the Assassin’s Creed, the prohibition of taking innocent life. Draven’s matter-of-fact, shit-happens mentality would find their apparent unwillingness to take that risk for the greater good as a potential hindrance; never mind the fact that, if the Assassins and the Alliance were working together, it may become a conflict in the future if the Alliance was ever called upon to do something that could endanger civilians. It would make him nervous about the Assassins abandoning the plan, _any_ plans, if they could not 100% guarantee the safety of all the potential civilians, and in a war they were losing, they couldn’t afford to give up such an advantage.  
  
Cassian’s heart was pounding. The cramping in his stomach was nearly unbearable. What else could he say? This was the second time today Lynch had asked him to keep quiet about something, and as loyal to Draven and the Rebellion as Cassian was, he couldn’t deny that Lynch was pressing on Cassian’s most tender spot: His desire to win this war with at least _some_ of his conscience in tact.  
  
“Alright,” He whispered. “I’ll stay quiet about it. And when he finds out about it, I’ll ask Kay to do the same.”  
  
Lynch nodded slowly. “Thank you.” He bowed his head for a moment, and Cassian could tell that something else was coming. “The Brotherhood- it was a close vote, the decision to hop in with the Rebellion. It was fifty-five to forty-five. There are a lot of people who think we shouldn’t be involved in this, that we’re inviting backlash and scrutiny from the Empire. Part of the concern is that the Assassins’ value of the Creed might be compromised if we joined an organized war effort with another group.”  
  
Cassian felt a chill on the back of his neck. He was sweating. “So it’s not even that the Brotherhood is okay with the Empire, it’s just that nearly half them thinks that associating with the Rebellion is going to corrupt you all and make you heartless, mindless killers obsessed with revenge and violence.”  
  
Lynch looked a little sad. “That’s the blunt way of putting it, yeah.”  
  
How was Cassian supposed to respond to this? Lynch, the Brotherhood- they weren’t _wrong._ God, Cassian had killed a _lot_ of people. He did not kill unless it was necessary, but that never meant that he felt good about taking a life, and it didn’t always mean that he felt the person _deserved_ to die. As of yet, the most morally repugnant thing he’d done thus far was kill an informant to stop him from leaking information to the Empire. It hadn’t been malicious- the man was fucking terrified of backlash from Imperial forces. But the information he had would have severely compromised the Rebellion, which implicated the lives of thousands at least and trillions at most, and that was that.  
  
It didn’t make killing him easier.  
  
Draven’s theory, imparted to Cassian one night when they’d gotten a little too drunk following said murder, was that they were the people responsible for sticking their hands into the mud and dirt and doing the necessarily, ugly things that nobody else could stomach doing. “It _does_ have to be done,” Draven had said quietly, calmly. “I’m sorry. There’s no two ways around it. If it didn’t have to be done, I wouldn’t be asking you to do it. This is the real fucking world, Cassian, and the real world is not a fairytale where the heroes never have to do ugly things to win.”  
  
Cassian understood the logic. It was the logic he lived by: Sometimes people had to die. If the conflict could be solved by sitting down with the Emperor and his Officers and discussing things rationally over a cup of tea, they would have done that by now; Force knew, that was something Mon Mothma had been trying to engineer for years. The stakes were too high, civilians were dying at the hands of the Empire every day, children were being orphaned, villages were being burned to the ground, people were living in fear as they dodged Stormtroopers on the street. And in fairness, the Rebellion was not nearly as savage as some of the smaller, radical factions that truly did not give a shit that there were civilians standing in front of their guns when they started their firefight with an Imperial squadron.  
  
Cassian worked with people who understood. But occasionally he met other people, people like Lynch, who could afford to stick to their moral codes, and it was a stark reminder that there was a massive canyon of space between himself and most every other person. The sort of people who would listen to the story of the murdered informant who’d only tried to protect his family, nod their heads like they understood, but then carefully distance themselves from Cassian over time, horrified by the sheer brutality that he'd committed against another person.  
  
But hadn’t Lynch said that he’d killed people? Hadn’t he claimed that the Assassins ‘didn’t play nicely’ and that they had killed people ‘because it was necessary’? Hadn’t he been the one who’d professed a belief that the Rebel Alliance was full of ‘heroes’ who might be bothered by professional assassins joining their ranks? Maybe Lynch would understand better than Cassian thought. Maybe the Creed was something they were supposed to aspire to, and sometimes they couldn’t. Maybe they had to stick their hands in the dirt sometimes too.  
  
Or maybe that was Aguilar he’d been speaking to, and Lynch took a very different view of the situation.  
_  
Should I tell him?_ Cassian wondered, even though the obvious answer was insistent in his head. _Should I try? Should I go out on a limb, here?_  
  
No.  
  
No he shouldn’t.  
  
Definitely not now, the day before a wildly dangerous mission where it would be necessary for the two of them to work well together; never mind the fact that if they had some tension between them, K-2SO would pick up on it and immediately become sensitive of potential danger to Cassian’s person.  
_  
Never,_ his brain insisted. _Never ever tell him. He’ll hate you, he’ll think you’re a monster, he’ll never look at you like a friend ever again._  
  
So Cassian smiled a tight smile and tried to blink away the burning feeling in his eyes that came whenever he thought too deeply about the things he’d done. “Well,” he said finally, forcing the tension to stay out of his voice. “I will do my best not to corrupt you, then.”  
  
Lynch smiled back. “Oh, Cassian, you couldn’t corrupt me any more than I already am, trust me.”  
  
It was only once Draven arrived and started talking that Cassian realized that Lynch had gone from calling him ‘Captain Andor’ to ‘Cassian’.  
  
[---]  
  
Later on, Cassian would lie awake in bed, unable to sleep, and allow himself some time to wallow in self-pity. It was rare that he allowed himself that time, lest he become overwhelmed with the depths of how utterly fucked up his life was and go to some very dark places that he never liked to go to.  
  
Places like, _I am a terrible person and I don’t deserve to be around other people who have managed to cling to their humanity._  
  
Which eventually led to, _Maybe it would be better if I wasn’t alive anymore._  
  
These thoughts always exhausted him, and eventually Cassian drifted off into a light, miserable sleep that only lasted about four hours.  
  
It was only slightly less than usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> ¿Confías en ellos?: “Do you trust them?”  
> No completamente: “Not entirely.”  
> Confío en Lynch. No conozco a los otros lo suficientemente bien para juzgar: “I trust Lynch. I don’t know the others well enough to judge.”  
> Cuidado con ellos. Si se comportan sospechosamente, dímelo inmediatamente: “Watch out for them. If they behave suspiciously, tell me immediately.”  
> Si: “Yes.”
> 
> Again, I don’t speak much Spanish, so if you notice any errors let me know.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I’m gonna warn everybody right now, that warning for “Graphic Descriptions of Blood/Gore/Violence”? This is the chapter that happens in. And idk, even by my standards (which are pretty loose tbh, I watch a lot of horror films) the stuff I’m describing here is pretty fucking graphic, so please beware.**

Cassian woke up tired and cranky.  
  
The self-loathing had transformed into a defiant bitterness towards the world at large, and that would have to be enough to get him through the day.  
  
The moderate headache he’d developed, less so.  
  
He dragged himself down to the canteen and choked down some caf. Eating was an option, but Cassian didn’t plan on taking it, however wise it would be to have something in his stomach before a physically strenuous mission. The sky was cloudy outside, and it made the base’s interior even darker than usual; Cassian’s already sour mood plummeted considerably.  
  
K-2SO found him and plopped down heavily onto the seat beside his with a loud _thunk_. There were times when Cassian wondered if maybe, in K-2SO’s attempts to mimic human mannerisms and customs, he sometimes forgot that he was, in some ways, much more prone to injury and damage than organics were. The droid said replicating human mannerisms was an attempt to better understand the people around him; Cassian suspected it had more to do with the reprogramming removing his sense of self and needing something to take its place.  
  
…Great. Something else that was Cassian’s fault.  
  
At least K-2SO seemed to pick up on Cassian’s mood and keep quiet. Cassian thought about asking him about his experience with the other Assassins yesterday, but frankly, if there was anything troubling worth mentioning K-2SO would have sought him out last night.  
  
The Assassins arrived within an hour. Cassian didn’t even realize until someone materialized in the seat across from his- not Lynch, but Moussa, who was grinning that grin that seemed to be a permanent fixture on his face.  
  
“Hey Captain! How’s your morning been? Ready to go cut some throats?”  
  
And here Cassian had once heard the Brotherhood described as ‘stoic’.  
  
“Hn,” Cassian grunted noncommittally.  
  
“Aw, what’s wrong? Not in the mood to crack some Imperial skulls?”  
  
“Most of the ‘Imperial skulls’ in question will be covered by helmets,” K-2SO remarked. “Attempting to bash them in would be counterproductive. Blasters will work much better.”  
  
Moussa looked K-2SO up and down curiously. “Are you always so literal? Genuine question, not trying to be an asshole.”  
  
“I am programmed for strategic analysis, and I am unfamiliar with your form of combat,” K-2SO responded. “I am merely informing you that attempting to crack a Stormtrooper’s helmet would be difficult.”  
  
Moussa’s grin returned. “Not if you have the right tool for the job. So, does it bother you, walking into an Imperial installation and watching other KX droids getting shot and blown sky-high?”  
  
K-2SO was quiet for a moment, and Cassian tensed. They had always steered away from this topic, specifically because K-2SO _did_ have plenty of capacity for emotion and Cassian knew how it felt to have potential soft spots poked and prodded. He was pretty certain that Moussa wasn’t trying to hurt K-2SO’s feelings by bringing up the destruction of other KX droids- likely he assumed, like many people, that K-2SO didn’t have feelings to hurt- but that didn’t change the fact that he likely just had.  
  
“I don’t know, _Moussa_ ,” Cassian spat. “How do you feel when you watch other Assassins die in the field?”  
  
Moussa shrugged. “I’ll let you know when I see it.”  
  
That wasn’t the answer Cassian had been expecting, but alright. “In the meantime, maybe try applying some empathy to the situation before asking stupid questions.” He was in a very savage mood this morning, apparently.  
  
Moussa didn’t seem put off, though; indeed, he kept right on smiling, amused by Cassian’s irritation. “I think I’m starting to see why you and the Pioneer get along so well: He can be a real grump too.” The grin grew pointy; literally, Cassian saw teeth. “It runs in the family.” Did Moussa know that Cassian knew about Aguilar, or was he trying to pull an ‘I know something you don’t know’ with Cassian, not realizing that the captain _did_ know?  
  
“Did you come to get us for something, or are you just trying to bother us?” Cassian sniped.  
  
Moussa shrugged, eyes bright with silent laughter. “I’ll look behind door number two,” he said sweetly.  
  
Cassian rolled his eyes shut and took a long drag from his cup.  
  
He heard Moussa stand (only because he heard the sound of fabric dragging on the table and the joints in K-2SO’s neck whirring and clicking as he followed the movement, the man was as light on his feet as Lynch) and leave.  
  
“That man concerns me,” K-2SO remarked flatly. “I think he’s unbalanced.”  
  
“You don’t say,” Cassian grumbled.  
  
“Hey man,” Moussa said, from some ways away, far too loudly, “Watch out, your boyfriend’s cranky today.”  
  
“Fuck off,” Came Lynch’s bored retort. He strode down the aisle between the tables and took Moussa’s vacated seat. “How’s it going?”  
  
Cassian grunted.  
  
Lynch gave a wry, sympathetic smile. “That well, huh?” He looked up to K-2SO. “How about you, big guy?”  
  
“I am in perfect functioning order,” K-2SO responded. “And Cassian will be too when he’s guzzled enough of that poor excuse for sustenance.”  
  
“You don’t see the point of coffee?” Lynch’s eyebrows went up. “Fuck, Cassian, how do you stand having him around?”  
  
“He has his uses,” Cassian remarked, if only because the remark managed to tickle something in him. He rubbed his temple with his free hand, the other clenched around his cup. “Force, but I am not prepared for bullshit today.”  
  
The corner of Lynch’s mouth quirked up into a half-smile. “Well, I’ll be right behind you, if that makes you feel any better.”  
  
“You’re an Assassin with a hidden blade on your arm,” K-2SO drawled. “If anything, that should make it _worse._ ”  
  
Cassian and Lynch both snorted at that.  
  
It wasn’t so much that Cassian was _delaying_ getting his shit together and reporting to Draven; it was just that he was so _done_ with this day already that he might have waited until literally the last possible second to do those things, and was the last to walk into the pre-mission briefing.  
_  
Just get through it_ , Cassian thought as Emir rehashed the plan, but in deeper detail than before; it was becoming apparent that the older man fulfilled some sort of strategic-coordinating role in the Brotherhood. _Just get through it_. It wasn’t fear or dread ruling him right now: It was just an intense desire to crawl back into bed and sleep for the rest of the day, something he hadn’t done (or had the luxury of doing) since he was a young teenager.  
  
“So we’re all clear on the plan?” Emir asked, eyes jumping to everyone around the table. “Everyone knows what they’re doing?” His eyes lingered on Nathan, who glared back at him.  
  
“Yeah, I’ve got it,” The younger Assassin snapped.  
  
Emir was unfazed. “Alright. Captain Andor, you and K-2SO will be taking your own ship; Moussa, Lynch, and Nathan will be using one of ours. That way we’ll have two methods of escape if things get hairy.”  
  
“I strongly recommend remaining undetected,” Draven said. “Jenoport is heavily guarded, and a good distance away. If things go to hell and we have to send a squadron to bail you out, the odds of us being able to extract you at all will be slim.”  
  
“I love it when briefings end on an uplifting note,” Moussa chuckled. “Alright then, so we’re all good?”  
  
As good as Cassian was going to get, if he was being honest.  
  
“Okay, let’s go blow some shit up!”  
   
[---]  
   
Jenoport was fucked from the beginning.  
  
On a scale of one to ten, one being ‘exceeding all expectations in success’ and ten being ‘utterly fucked to hell’, Jenoport was probably a fifty.  
  
Glorious Fuckup Number One:  
  
Somebody- it could have been Cassian and K-2SO, it could have been the Assassins’ craft, which Cassian still hadn’t actually _seen_ \- set off some kind of sensor when they’d entered Jenoport’s atmosphere. So there were patrols scouting nearby the moment they touched the fucking ground. So Cassian and K-2SO had been forced to get into a firefight with about twenty Stormtroopers whilst simultaneously trying to lead them away from the ship.  
  
That didn’t work.  
  
The ship had been blown up.  
  
When the last of the Stormtroopers had been killed and he and K-2SO were running through the forest on the outskirts of the factory complex, Cassian’s grim moodiness took on an edge of manic hysteria.  
_  
Of course the ship got blown up,_ he thought, nearly laughing out loud as they made it to a small cove outside of the complex and waited for Lynch.  
  
That was Glorious Fuckup Number Two:  
  
Cassian and K-2SO waited nearly _three_ fucking hours in that goddamn cove for Lynch. After the first hour and a half, Cassian had started to worry. By hour three, he was convinced of the worst, and was glad that he hadn’t eaten that morning, because he might have thrown up.  
  
“Lynch isn’t coming,” He said after checking his watch. All attempts at contacting the Assassin had failed; all he was getting on the communicator was static. “We’ll have to do this ourselves.”  
  
“That is highly inadvisable,” K-2SO responded, with a wary, hesitant tone that was uncommon to him. “The plan hinged on the idea that Lynch would draw out some of the guards with a distraction while we planted the bombs. Never mind the fact that the schematics show that planting all of the bombs in the requisite places for optimal damage _and_ triggering the alarm to send the workers running puts us at an eighty-nine percent risk of discovery and-”  
  
“Kay,” Cassian interrupted testily, “If Lynch isn’t here by now, he’s not coming. “Our ship is gone, and his probably is too. Our only hope for stealing a craft, at this point, relies on our ability to make as much chaos as possible so that no one will notice us trying to steal one.”  
  
Never mind the fact that they had no idea if it was _just_ Lynch who was dead. If Nathan and Moussa were still alive and carrying out their own plan, then _that_ factory blowing up before _their_ factory would mean that _their_ factory would go on high alert, making evacuation of the civilian workers that much harder.  
  
Glorious Fuckup Number Four (No, you read that correctly, it’s Four):  
  
Trying to set up the bombs without Lynch’s distraction was awful. K-2SO was able to roam about with relative impunity, and the one tiny, brilliant stroke of luck that day was that nobody stopped to ask him any questions or give him any orders.  
  
Cassian was not as lucky.  
  
Lynch had been carrying the other half of the bombs in his bag, so that meant that Cassian had to quietly consult with K-2SO and recalculate where the bombs should be placed to maximize the damage. And naturally, the best areas were also the ones that were the most heavily guarded.  
  
Four times he was nearly spotted. On two of those occasions K-2SO managed to run interference and catch the patrolling trooper, reporting some minor issue with a mechanical efficiency that told Cassian he was relying on some of his old protocols (otherwise he would have screwed them both with his terrible lying). The other two times he’d just managed to take cover before he could be caught.  
  
It took nearly two hours. To say that they were behind schedule would be like saying that the Emperor was kind of mean to his subjects. But if Moussa and Nathan were still alive and had blown their factory (the moment of which was supposed to have been determined via communicator, which obviously wasn’t going to happen today whether they were alive or not), there was no indicator of it in this factory. Everyone seemed to be going about their business.  
  
Right up until K-2SO urgently whispered, “Cassian, they’ve found one.”  
  
Cassian froze, hand on the eleventh of the fifteen explosives. “They what?”  
  
“They’ve found one of the explosives.”  
  
And as if on cue, a tone sounded over the loudspeaker. “Attention staff, we have a Code Orange on Level 2 Sector 3, lockdown procedure is to be implemented. Stand by for further instructions.” Cassian’s mouth dropped open slightly as he listened to the cool, crisp voice give out the order.  
  
Lockdown.  
  
They’d found an explosive, and they were going into lockdown procedure instead of evacuation.  
  
Part of Cassian was kicking himself. Of course they were locking down, it was the _Empire_ ; they could care less about losing civilians employees and contractors in an explosion. More to the point, since the explosives had been discovered before they could go off, it might now be perceived that one of the factory workers was responsible, a Rebel convert hiding amongst their coworkers.  
  
Shit. _Shit._  
  
Cassian shoved the inactive explosive back into his bag and shook his head. “Kay, we’re going.”  
  
K-2SO rotated to face him. “What?”  
  
“We’re going. The mission’s blown, and I…” Through the overwhelming sense of weary frustration, Cassian flinched at the thought of disappointing Lynch. He also flinched at the idea of disappointing Draven and the Alliance, but he could survive a botched mission with his soul intact; killing civilians who were effectively being _forced_ to stay in close quarters with a potential bomb threat in the air, that would put his soul through the crucible. “…We’re not doing it. We’re getting out of here, right now, blasting our way onto a ship, and we’ll go from there.”  
  
Without warning, the tone sounded over the loudspeaker, again followed by the voice of a man, different from the last one:  
  
“Attention all staff, evacuate immediately. Proceed to the nearest exit and evacuate the premises in an orderly fashion.”  
  
Oh Force, Cassian’s brain was going to start hemorrhaging if something didn’t go-  
  
“Stop right there!” Two Stormtroopers, blasters raised to point at Cassian’s chest, came down the walkway.  
  
…right.  
  
“I have this prisoner,” K-2SO stuttered into action. “I have him, I am bringing him to the… The prison.”  
  
Cassian let out a low, pained groan.  
_  
Just fucking shoot me, I swear to-_  
  
He pulled out his blaster in one swift movement and blew the first trooper away.  
  
K-2SO stepped in front of him and took the shot from the second trooper, whom Cassian immediately shot down as well.  
  
And then all hell broke loose.  
  
Cassian had been on his fair share of chaotic battlefields before, but this one took the cake: The klaxons began honking loudly, the sound reverberating off the metal walls and shaking Cassian down to his bones. At some point, the lights cut out as well, and red emergency lights kicked on in their place. He banged into people, panicked workers, troopers who couldn’t see him clearly.  
  
He couldn’t deny that one of his weaknesses was chaos. Cassian was a strategic thinker, a man who often went to his small, quiet, broom-closet of a room to work on reports because the background noises of the base distracted him too much. He became overwhelmed in moments of extreme overstimulation like this, with too many people and too much chaos, and when he couldn’t think clearly, things went bad.  
  
Glorious Fuckup Number Five:  
  
He lost K-2SO somewhere in the madness. Cassian didn’t realize until he’d gotten out of the factory- the other miniscule stroke of luck that day being that the crowd he’d followed had emptied out near the hangar and landing pad where the factory must have received its shipments.  
  
It went without saying that he wasn’t leaving K-2SO behind. It just wasn’t happening. Part of the problem regarding Cassian’s issue with focusing during chaotic, over-stimulating situations was that his ability to make good, informed decisions on his own went down, down, down. Normally, this would be the part where he’d default to whatever his mission was, but the mission had gone up in smoke (ironically, not in the literal way that it should have) and all he could do now was find K-2SO and escape, and he didn’t have orders to follow with that- he had to wing it.  
_  
Steal a ship,_ he thought. _Steal a ship, then find Kay, then escape. That’s all you need to do for now. Worry about the rest when you get there._  
  
He made a break for the landing pad, distantly feeling safe enough to sprint given the amount of panic and chaos that was around him. Stormtroopers were barking orders, trying to herd the workers into a particular area, and all he really understood was that he needed to get away from the area before he could be corralled and discovered and either interrogated or shot. Not necessarily in that order.  
  
The problem was that Cassian didn’t _stop_ sprinting when he’d broken free of the throng of people escaping the factory.  
  
This was Glorious Fuckup Number 6, the last of the day, and arguably one of the worst fuckups.  
  
At least, that was how Cassian would look back on it, because this one was, as far as he would be concerned, exclusively his fault.  
  
Amongst the things he Could Have Done to Change Things:  
  
He could have found K-2SO first.  
  
He could have melted into the crowd and slipped out at a better opportunity.  
  
He could have found a way to distract the Stormtroopers, claimed to see some Rebel running off in the opposite direction of the landing pad.  
  
Or, he could have stopped running. He could have stopped running and _snuck_ onto the pad like the motherfucking _Intelligence Officer_ that he was supposed to be, the one that Draven had trained since the age of sixteen, the one who was supposed to be better than breaking cover and making himself completely visible to his enemies because he was overwhelmed and panicked and not thinking clearly.  
_  
Why couldn’t you have slowed down?_ Cassian would scream at himself, _Why couldn’t you have been sneaky? Why didn’t you do literally any of the things you **could** have done to avoid this?_  
  
And as always, looking for that answer would keep him up most of the night.  
  
What happened, in its simplest iteration, was this:  
  
Cassian ran for the pad.  
  
A Stormtrooper saw him, and ran after him. Just one Stormtrooper; the others had yet to realize he was running, or maybe they were too preoccupied herding the workers, or maybe they figured that one Stormtrooper was necessary to handle one runaway factory worker.  
  
But it was just the one.  
  
And for the moment, the landing pad was _completely_ deserted.  
  
Cassian, having just managed to reach a ship, realized he was being followed, and turned around, blaster up, and took the shot.  
  
The Stormtrooper was hit in the neck.  
  
And then Cassian killed him.  
  
Of course he killed him: He was a Stormtrooper, an agent of the Empire, and if given the chance he would shoot Cassian in the back and keep right on going. Cassian had killed plenty of Stormtroopers before, and he would likely kill many more if he didn’t die on Jenoport that day.  
  
But usually Cassian was better at killing.  
  
Usually they died with one shot.  
  
Usually the people he shot did not howl in pain afterwards.  
  
Usually he didn’t have to shoot them again.  
  
Usually, they didn’t keep screaming.  
  
And crying.  
  
His blaster was nearly spent. He couldn’t just keep shooting.  
  
The screaming was loud. So loud.  
  
Other troopers would come.  
  
The reaction was so automatic that Cassian wouldn’t recall a decision-making process later on. He knelt down, yanked the Stormtrooper’s helmet up just enough that the back of his head was exposed, put the muzzle of the blaster directly on the skin, and-  
  
Blood.  
  
All over his hands.  
  
Not just blood.  
  
Chunks of, of… Brain, of muscle and skull and skin, some sizzling from the heat of the blaster.  
  
And now there was blood sprinkled on his face because the trooper was seizing and shaking and was _still not fucking dead_ and Cassian panicked and drove the butt of the blaster into the Stormtrooper’s helmet once, twice, three times until finally _finally_ he stopped moving.  
  
Cassian heard a strange, ugly sound, like a dying animal.  
  
It took a moment to realize it was coming from him.  
_  
I am a monster I am a monster I am a monster that was a person that was a human that was someone’s son someone’s brother someone’s father and I beat his skull in I have his brains on me-_  
  
The smell of the gore stuck to his hands and jacket was suddenly overwhelming.  
  
Cassian fell to his knees and vomited, stomach cramping violently. It felt like his body was punishing him, like it was appalled at what he’d done and was making him suffer as penitence.  
_  
You’ve literally blown a man’s brains out._  
  
Cassian gagged.  
_  
You have his brains on your hands._  
  
He wretched. _  
  
He twitched and cried and screamed as he died. _  
  
Vomited.  
_  
He died in pain._  
  
Coughed.  
_  
He died terrified._  
  
Gasped.  
_  
And it was **you** that did it to him._  
  
He was going to pass out. If not from the fact that he felt like the mother of all panic attacks was coming on, then maybe from the fact that his mind and body were conspiring to shut down out of sheer disbelief and exhaustion.  
In that moment, Cassian Andor genuinely could not have cared less if another Stormtrooper had come along and shot him. For those few ugly moments that seemed to stretch into an eternity, he did not have it in him to care about anything: Not his life, not the mission, not the Rebellion, not the Galaxy.  
**_  
BOOM._**  
  
And then half the factory exploded.  
  
The ground shook so ferociously that Cassian, who had crawled away from the body as best he could and was still on his hands and knees, toppled over completely and bashed his back against the ship behind him. Smoke and fire billowed up from the roof of the factory; he could feel the heat from the landing pad.  
  
It would be incorrect to say that the explosion snapped Cassian out of his stupor: In a way, it actually made it worse, because his brain was so overloaded from _everything_ that an additional bit of chaos nearly sent him over the edge into blubbering incoherency.  
_  
What? What is this?_  
_  
What’s happening **now?**_  
  
The trigger, he knew, was still in his bag. And it wasn’t some paltry little flip-switch either; he would have had to enter a six-digit code into the trigger in order to set off the bombs, and as it was _extremely_ clear that he had done nothing of the sort-  
  
“Cassian.”  
  
Cassian jumped, gasping in pain as his now sore back slammed against the ship again in surprise.  
  
It was K-2SO. Where he had come from, how he managed to look so _calm_ in the face of all this hell (what Cassian would have given to be a droid in this moment, cool and logical even in moments of deep stress), was a mystery; but he was not a stress-induced hallucination. K-2SO was very much real.  
  
The droid looked down at the dead trooper, examined him (and probably the puddle of vomit on the ground nearby) for several long seconds, and then looked back to Cassian. “We have a problem.”  
  
Cassian felt the irrational, hysterical urge to laugh. “You don’t say?”  
  
“There are no less than seventy-seven Stormtroopers making their way to our present location. There is a high probability of capture or death if we cannot evade them. Lynch found me before the bombs went off, and indicated that we should proceed to a particular set of coordinates in the forest for extraction immediately.”  
  
Cassian stared at the droid dumbly. “What?”  
  
And see, _that_ was the missing Glorious Fuckup Number Three:  
  
Not waiting for Lynch.  
  
Because Lynch was neither dead nor captured; he was just late.  
  
Cassian followed K-2SO into the forest. Later, he would have little recollection of this walk; he would remember entering the forest, and he would remembering stumbling into the clearing where Lynch was waiting after K-2SO, and nothing of the nearly twenty minutes in-between. It wasn’t uncommon, following unusually distressing missions or incidents, for his memory to become… Unreliable, was maybe the best word for it. It had been happening since he was a child, and usually there was someone nearby to fill in the blanks for him when everything was over.  
  
In the clearing, Lynch was visibly anxious. He relaxed only slightly once he’d gotten a good look at Cassian and K-2SO. “Thank God.”  
  
“I don’t believe we’ve been followed,” K-2SO supplied. “From the looks of it, the Stormtroopers are all back at the facility. The explosions were a sufficient distraction from any wandering people.”  
  
Lynch nodded, jerked his head to the side. “Good. We need to go,” He said quickly. “Get in.”  
  
It was then that Cassian realized that there was something behind Lynch.  
  
Whatever it was had some sort of camouflaging to it: It wasn’t invisible, per se, but the metal had faded somewhat so that it was less detectable on first glance, melting into the browns and greens of the forest. A hatch somewhere on the rear of the object slid open, and Lynch climbed inside. K-2SO went next, and Cassian climbed in behind.  
  
Obviously, this was a ship: But it was a very small ship. Almost claustrophobically small, and Cassian had been in X-Wings before. The design could almost be mistaken for an escape pod, except that the controls were far more sophisticated. This was a craft built for travel, not merely for emergency survival.  
  
“What is this?” Cassian’s voice sounded wrong, even to his own ears; it was strange and hollow.  
  
“It’s like an escape pod.” Lynch took one of the chairs in front of the main console. There was a co-pilot’s seat, and Cassian thought that maybe he should sit in it; instead, he sat down on one of the seats bordering the wall. “But a bit bigger, faster, and built for  
more practical transportation. We call them Fragments.”  
  
Cassian nodded distantly.  
  
Lynch, finally sensing that something was amiss, turned his head and looked at Cassian. He frowned. “Are you alright?”  
  
Cassian nodded again. It was pure reflex, because ‘of course I’m alright’ was the only acceptable answer, even if he was as far from alright as he was ever going to get. The problem was that when someone said ‘I’m fine’ when it was painfully obvious that they were not fine, people tended to keep a close watch on them to make sure ‘fine’ didn’t turn into something worse.  
  
But Lynch didn’t jump on the lie. Instead, Cassian watched as the Assassin’s eyes flickered over Cassian’s jacket, undoubtedly taking note of the bloodstains (and whatever else was still clinging to him), maybe noticing that Cassian was pallid despite being uninjured, or maybe just sensing some change in the Rebel’s demeanor, something that hadn’t been there before they’d parted ways earlier.  
  
What he said instead was, “I’m sorry.”  
  
Cassian blinked. “What?”  
  
“Everything went to hell in a finely-woven hand-basket. I’m sorry.”  
  
There were a lot of things Cassian could choose to think or feel about that statement, or the fact that Lynch had been big enough to apologize even when Cassian wasn’t entirely sure that he’d actually done anything really wrong in the first place. But at the moment, he was having trouble feeling anything, and so he leaned his head against the window and tried not to think.  
  
“I’m sorry too,” Was all he said.  
   
[---]  
   
They didn’t leave Jenoport entirely.  
  
Moussa and Nathan were waiting at an outpost on the other side of the planet for extraction as well; Cassian did not ask how their attempt had gone. He didn’t even know if Lynch knew those details by that point.  
  
Their small ship landed just outside the outpost. Cassian stepped out of the ship and was momentarily bewildered at how peaceful the area was; it was though the chaos of their very recent fight had just evaporated, like it never existed.  
  
“I’ll go looking for them,” Lynch said. “You should stay here.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Cassian protested hollowly.  
  
“Maybe,” Lynch said neutrally, “But you don’t _look_ fine. You have… Your clothes are messed up, and you look like you’ve just run the gauntlet.” He nodded to K-2SO. “You’ve got some blaster-marks on you too. You’ll both look suspicious.”  
  
K-2SO’s head rotated to look down at Cassian. “I’m compelled to agree. And assuming the inhabitants of this world are congenial with the Empire, it wouldn’t take long for someone to report us.”  
  
And so Lynch went off to find Moussa and Nathan, and Cassian and K-2SO stuck around by the Fragment.  
  
For the first thirty minutes or so, Cassian didn’t move from his seat, only nodding slightly when K-2SO said that he was stepping out of the Fragment in order to examine the structure of the craft.  
  
He was better than he’d been about half an hour ago, when they’d left the factory complex behind. Cassian’s head was a bit clearer now, a bit more organized; but it was still cluttered enough that basic things like movement and speech were currently unavailable to him.  
_  
Pull yourself together_ , he thought. _Move. Your cheek’s digging into the metal._  
  
He couldn’t even be bothered to do that.  
  
Cassian was somewhat renowned, on base, for his perseverance. He had, quite literally, dragged himself out of more than a few situations on his hands and knees, inch by blessed inch. In most situations, he could _force_ himself to do anything: _Move your foot; now the other one. Yes, it hurts, yes, you’re exhausted, just do it a few more times. Now a few more times. Keep going. Almost there._  
  
It was rare for Cassian to hit an actual breaking-point. But if there was any glaring red flag, any blaring klaxon that signaled that he was about to snap like a twig, it was that right now he did not have the ability to _make_ himself do anything. He couldn’t make himself talk, whether to whisper or scream; and he couldn’t even lift his cheek off of the metal edge of the window that was digging into his skin.  
  
Cassian had come close to this point before, but he had never actually crossed over into what laid beyond the breaking.  
  
Had he the presence of mind to process it, Cassian would have dread what was to come, what always came in situations like these: The slow seeping of his thoughts and feelings as they were released from where they’d been forcibly bottled up. He stowed them away in moments of extreme stress, retreating into numbness, but they always came back eventually, whether he liked it or not. The reassurance of physical and mental safety was always enough to bring them to the light again.  
  
The first thing he really felt, maybe fifteen minutes was a surprisingly easy, gentle relief at the fact that Lynch was alive. Given how severely things had gone wrong, Cassian thought he’d be grieving the short-term friendship he’d had with the Assassin at the next available opportunity, but evidently he was going to be spared that today.  
  
Assuming Lynch came back safely.  
  
Cassian felt a sharp spike of fear.  
  
( _Oh no, here we go, it’s starting-_ )  
  
Once they were out, the repressed emotions weren’t terribly concerned with presenting themselves in a logical order.  
  
There was a deep, biting fear now, the rash impulse that said _I need to go after Lynch and make sure he’s alright, every second he’s gone means he could be hurt or dead_ , the agonizing twisting in his stomach that said _I like him, I really do like him, it’s going to hurt so badly if he dies_ , the constant shiver running up and down his spine that said _You aren’t safe, Kay isn’t safe, Lynch isn’t safe, **nobody’s** safe, you need to do something to make yourself safe-_  
  
Cassian suddenly realized that he was still holding his blaster.  
  
His brain reconnected with his hand, and with an ease that was shocking given how he’d been practically immobile a few seconds ago, he slowly lifted the blaster onto his lap and looked down at it.  
  
That was a mistake.  
  
Because upon seeing the blood and small flecks of… _Not_ -blood on the barrel, upon paying attention and realizing that he could still faintly smell burning flesh from where the muzzle had pressed against the Stormtrooper’s skull, every single detail of that scene came back to him in an awful rush.  
  
He’d killed a man.  
_  
You killed a Stormtrooper._  
  
It was so _brutal_.  
_  
No less brutal than what he would have done to you in similar circumstances._  
  
It was bloody.  
_  
This is war. War is bloody._  
  
Cassian’s mind, in any given moment, could be his greatest ally or his worst enemy imaginable.  
  
He understood, better than most, that war did not just require physical sacrifice: It required emotional sacrifice, _moral_ sacrifice. If one did not sacrifice their morals in some respect, how else could they justify shooting a man in the back of the head? How else could one justify blowing a bunch of people up in a deliberate factory bombing?  
  
The answer is that they couldn’t. _Cassian_ couldn’t.  
  
But there was a difference between compromising your morals and throwing them to the wind entirely. There was a difference between quickly and cleanly killing a Stormtrooper in self-defense and bashing his skull open in a fit of frantic desperation.  
_  
I didn’t mean to_ , Cassian thought, will all of the smallness of the child he hadn’t been in a very long time. _I didn’t mean to._  
  
But he had.  
  
He kept staring at the blaster, and inevitably, Cassian wondered at whether or not he should consider pointing it at his own head and pulling the trigger.  
  
It wouldn’t be difficult, would it? Cassian knew the right place on his head to aim to make sure the shot would kill. Maybe a moment of pain, a flash of a burn or a sting, and then he would be cold and dead on the ground and his spirit- if he even had one, he was jaded enough at this point to consider that maybe there was nothing beyond life- would be off to, _maybe_ , get some peace.  
  
Normally, the possibility that there was nothing after death was enough to scare Cassian away from serious consideration of suicide. But right now, it wasn’t working; it wasn’t enough to stave off the pervasive thought of _I am so damn tired of hurting, I am so damn tired of hurting myself, I am so damn tired of hurting other people, I am just so damn **tired** and I want it to end-_  
  
“Cassian.”  
  
Startled out of his morbid considerations, Cassian looked up.  
  
K-2SO had re-entered the craft and was staring down at him. “It would be of no trouble for me to initiate a memory-wipe of the last three hours, should your continued dignity and service demand it.” He paused, head rotating to examine the smoking metal where blaster-fire had struck him. “I have been damaged somewhat.  Should General Draven inquire, you can tell him that my memory archives were impacted. I doubt he has enough knowledge of my anatomy to know-”  
  
“No,” Cassian whispered. He looked back down at his blaster again, and the movement made him feel something on his face, made him realize that his cheeks were wet- he was crying. “Don’t wipe your memory, Kay, it’s fine, just…” He rubbed his wet face with a shaking hand. “…Don’t tell anyone, either. About the trooper, or about… This.” He wiggled the blaster accordingly.  
  
K-2SO stared at him for a long, long moment. It was always a little alarming when he did this, because without their ability to move or change his facial expression it was nearly impossible for Cassian to tell what was going on in his head. “Or that,” K-2SO finally repeated, gesturing to the blaster. “You don’t want me to tell anyone that you have a blaster…”  
  
Cassian heard K-2SO’s voice change from hesitant confusion to understanding in a matter of seconds.  
  
“Cassian,” Now the droid sounded urgent. “I understand about the Stormtrooper, but perhaps you should tell someone about-”  
  
“ _No._ Kay, just- I’m fine.”  
  
“You are _not_ fine,” The droid insisted. “Suicidal thoughts are an abnormality that indicate mental illness in humans and should be addressed as soon as-”  
  
“I am _not_ suicidal, Kay!”  
  
The words rang loudly, painfully false in his head.  
  
“You’re not suicidal- then why don’t you want me to tell anyone about-” K-2SO mimicked the gesture Cassian had made with the blaster. “-because if it weren’t serious then I don’t think you’d care if I said anything!”  
  
Cassian pulled at his hair. “God damn it, that’s- That’s exactly _why_ I don’t want you saying anything. It is _not_ serious, and if you tell people about it they’ll assume it is when it’s _not!_ ”  
  
“I don’t believe you.” K-2SO said firmly.  
  
“I don’t care. _Don’t tell anyone._ I’ll be removed from duty.”  
  
“Maybe you need to be,” The droid responded evenly. “Maybe it would be good for you to rest. You don’t do that very often.” He wasn’t wrong, but the response to this sort of thing would not be ‘eh, take a couple weeks off to calm down’. It would be mandatory mental health screenings and immediate removal until a doctor was satisfied that Cassian wasn’t suicidal anymore, that he wasn’t a risk to himself or anyone else.  
  
And there was a small, terrifying part of Cassian that knew that if that were to ever happen, there was a pretty good chance that he would be permanently discharged from the Rebellion.  
  
“I’m not asking, Kay,” Cassian meant for it to be a growl, but it came out as a somewhat menacing croak. “I’m telling you.”  
  
“Telling him what?”  
  
Moussa had popped into the craft so silently that Cassian banged his head against the wall in shock. “Fuck!” He hissed, bringing one hand to the back of his head.  
  
Moussa whistled. “Damn, you’ve looked better.”  
  
Cassian didn’t respond to that. He just gave K-2SO a very pointed look, a warning to keep his (metaphorical) mouth shut.  
  
Nathan came in after, Lynch bringing up the rear. The younger Assassin had a makeshift sling around his arm, and he was noticeably paler than before. But other than that, none of the Assassins seemed to be hurt.  
  
Lynch’s eyes immediately fell on Cassian when he entered the cabin. “You two alright?” He asked, and Cassian nodded because he had to.  
  
“Yes,” He said, voice scratchy. “We’re fine.” He offered K-2SO another deliberate, pointed look.  
  
But K-2SO said nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

Words could not describe how badly Cassian did not want to drag his ass out of bed the next morning.  
  
Exhaustion had sunken into every single part of his body. He’d gotten a look at himself in the mirror last night, saw the bags under his eyes, the pallor of his skin, the blood and flesh on his clothes, and understood why Draven had taken one look at him and declared that the debriefing could wait until the morning.  
  
Cassian wouldn’t have argued even if he could.  
  
It was a good sign, however minimal, that he was able to force himself out of bed, force himself to shower (for a fourth time in twenty-four hours, he’d scrubbed vigorously last night, paranoid that he would be finding pieces of foreign skin or brain clinging to him later on), force himself to dress, and force himself to leave his room and interact with other people.  
  
Darkly, he thought that suicide might be better than having to field more fucking questions about his mental health from K-2SO.  
  
_That’s not funny,_ he reprimanded himself. _You’ve seen people kill themselves before. It’s not fucking funny._  
  
Cassian was not the first member of the Rebellion to witness or commit horrific acts of brutality; and if he did kill himself, he would not be the first to do so either. One of his most vivid memories from the resistance cell he’d been apart of when he was fifteen was when one of the men… Well, Cassian didn’t know specifically what happened: The guy went on a mission, completely normal, and when he came back he was pale as a ghost. He’d blown his head off that night, and as Cassian was one of the first to get to the room after the shot was fired, he’d seen far more of the gory scene than he’d needed to. The man hadn’t worn a helmet, not like the Stormtrooper, so it was _much_ worse.  
  
Cassian curled into a ball. _Do not think about the Stormtrooper. Do not._  
  
_And there is not “if” you kill yourself: It’s not an option. It’s off the table. You have no choice. You keep yourself alive._  
  
This was not the first time he’d recited that mantra.  
  
K-2SO met him on his way to the mess hall. “I debriefed Draven,” Was the greeting Cassian received. Under normal circumstances he would be been angry, demanding to know why K-2SO hadn’t woken him for the meeting. Right now, he didn’t care. He didn’t have a word for how little he cared.  
  
“And?”  
  
“Once you’ve eaten,” The droid said with a conspicuously business-like tone, “You’re being sent to Dandoran to meet up with Lynch. One of the civilian contractors defected from Jenoport after the scene yesterday, and you’re to be interrogating him.”  
  
“Right.” Cassian locked eyes with the droid. “So, did you tell Draven?”  
  
“Did I tell Draven what?” By all rights, a droid should not have been capable of such passive-aggressive sarcasm. That his vocal processors were even capable of that level of snark was astonishing.  
  
“You _know_ what,” Cassian snapped, a small flame of irritation licking temptingly at him. As close as his emotions were to the surface at the moment, it would not be difficult for him to lose control of his temper, even with K-2SO.  
  
“I have not told Draven anything about yesterday’s incident that you have explicitly prohibited me from speaking about,” K-2SO said with a sort of prim matter-of-factness. “And you were quite thorough in making specifying exactly what you didn’t want me repeating on the way back to base.”  
  
Cassian had made sure of that. He’d whispered very explicit instructions to the droid, all in Festian in the event that the Assassins overheard them, and tried to cover any potential loopholes that K-2SO might try to exploit.  
  
“Are the Assassins still here?” Nathan was being treated for his arm injury, last Cassian could remember.  
  
“Nathan and Moussa are. Lynch has gone to report to the Brotherhood; hence why he’ll be meeting you on Dandoran.” K-2SO turned away. “I have some additional repairs I need done from yesterday. You’d best eat something and leave as soon as possible; you look so very _alright_ and _perfectly fine_ today, people might just start taking notice.” He walked away without another word.  
  
Cassian didn’t respond. He was too busy trying to keep his breathing even, and his temper under control.  
  
He’d never fought with K-2SO before. Not like this. And Cassian knew that if he lost his temper he might say something ugly and alienate his friend.  
  
If he hadn’t already.  
  
[---]  
  
Dandoran’s coast was dark.  
  
Clouds were rumbling above; this, Cassian was told, was a reasonably common occurrence for this area, hence why he’d brought out his parka for the mission. The coast itself, from their landing point on, slanted upwards: Beach turned into ledge which turned into cliff, which offered a sheer drop directly into the water below. The further they walked, the higher the cliff grew.  
  
“Nice view,” Lynch remarked, indicating the way the storm-clouds swirled over the ocean. It was one of many small comments he’d made, clearly trying to goad Cassian into a conversation, gauging the captain’s mood, but Cassian wasn’t biting. He was tired, and he wanted to get this done and over with so that he could go back to base and, hopefully, lie down for a bit.  
  
“Cassian?”  
  
Cassian pulled his gaze up and away from the ground and looked at Lynch. “Mm?”  
  
Lynch had stopped walking, was looking him up and down, and Cassian detected not only concern, but also a sort of… _nervousness_ in those movements. “Are you alright?”  
  
Cassian shrugged. He was going for nonchalant, but in retrospect, the gesture was so apathetic that it probably raised more suspicions than it alleviated. “Yeah. I’m fine. Why?”  
  
Lynch was still studying him. Cassian felt that little flame of aggravation licking at him again, felt the urge to get rude, spit _what? what are you looking at?_ But it was a small flame right then. He could keep himself in check.  
  
“You just look really…” Lynch gave his own little shrug, which Cassian was tempted to take as a mockery of his own shrug. “Beat.” He paused. “You know… I can talk to this guy myself, if you wanted to go back to the Fragment and lie down. There’s a cot that pulls out of the wall. It’s not the most comfortable thing in the world, but it’ll do the job when you-”  
  
“I’m _fine_.”  
  
There it was.  
  
There was the edge of a bite, the sign being posted on the door that said ‘I am not in a good mood and you should tread lightly’. Now the only question was whether or not Lynch would heed the warning; he’d never seen the sort of angry that Cassian could be before, and really, he didn’t _want_ to. Nobody did.  
  
After a moment, Lynch nodded. “Alright. It’s there if you want it.”  
  
Cassian should have said thank you. He should have taken note of the fact that Lynch was trying to show him the same kindness Cassian had shown him when he’d had his Bleeding episode.  
  
But now the door was cracked, and Cassian had to focus on making sure it didn’t open any wider.  
  
The logical part of Cassian’s brain understood that there was nothing to be angry about. Lynch was concerned about him, and that was entirely logical given his behavior, appearance, and attitude. But somehow, Lynch’s concern was grating, just like K-2SO’s insistence that Cassian was _not_ okay, that he needed to seek medical attention, was. Logically he understood how sound their concerns were, but in reality, they just aggravated him.  
  
They kept walking.  
  
The problem was, now Cassian had it in his head. The aggravation had woken up the swirl of dark thoughts that he’d managed to carefully suppress since waking up that morning, and now his temper was slowly dropping down, down, down, and those _thoughts_ were coming back.  
  
_You bashed a man’s skull in._  
  
_You probably still have microscopic pieces of brain and blood on you._  
  
_Remember this the next time a trooper blasts one of your friends’ heads off. You gonna be as angry next time?_  
  
_Hypocrite._  
  
_Murderer._  
  
**_No better than a Stormtrooper, really._**  
  
Cassian did not have the energy to battle those thoughts. They pressed in, suffocated him, consumed him. He’d nearly forgotten where he was until the ingrained survival instincts in his brain began pinging, warning him that he was in danger.  
  
In his dark stupor, Cassian hadn’t noticed that he’d wandered close to the edge of the cliff- not enough to be in danger of accidentally falling over, but close enough that he could see the water below in the periphery of his vision. Cassian stopped, reoriented himself in reality as much as he could, and looked over the edge of the cliff.  
  
It was a very, very long way to fall.  
  
Cassian pictured himself toppling down to the rocks below. From this height, he’d gain enough momentum that death would come almost instantly. If life clung to him, it would only be for a few seconds, and his spine would be too broken to process much of the pain from his broken body.  
  
He moved a little closer to the edge, feet slipping slightly on the damp rock.  
  
It would be even easier than a blaster to the head, wouldn’t it? All it would take was an extra step, and the sheer length of the fall would be enough to kill him when he hit the rocks. It might even be taken as an accident instead of a deliberate attempt to end his life. But then, the only person that would be a comfort to would be K-2SO, and given his suspicions, he likely wouldn’t believe that it had been an accident for so much as a millisecond. Draven would probably be more shocked if it _wasn’t_ suicide; he wasn’t accustomed to losing agents because of stupid, banal accidents.  
  
_Stop it._  
  
Cassian was standing on the edge of a cliff, idly contemplating jumping off. That wasn’t an option; suicide was off the table. Period.  
  
Not an option.  
  
“ _Cassian!_ ”  
  
Hands suddenly grabbed him roughly and yanked him away from the edge, which was suddenly much closer than it had been before.  
  
The combination of unexpected physical contact (which was something that had bothered Cassian for years) and the motion of being forcibly _thrown_ away from the edge of the cliff had roughly the effect of having ice-cold water dumped on his head, and he was suddenly very aware of his surroundings.  
  
Lynch was looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “What the hell was that?”  
  
“It was nothing,” Cassian defended automatically.  
  
“Don’t bullshit me, Andor: _What the hell was what?_ ” Lynch was looking less horrified and more angry by the second.  
  
“It was _nothing_ ,” Cassian insisted. “I was looking at the water.”  
  
He wasn’t going to jump.  
  
(He’d only been _thinking_ about it.)  
  
Lynch had done a one-eighty; where he’d been calm and passive a few minutes ago, now he looked like he was ready to punch something. The Assassin marched right up to him, closer than Cassian was necessarily comfortable with at the moment, and leveled his furious gaze leveled with the captain’s. “Did something happen on Jenoport?”  
  
_Damn_ it.  
  
Cassian had done his damndest to give K-2SO as much free will as he was able to. That being said, K-2SO had a great deal of loyalty to Cassian and followed just about every order that was given to him.  
  
Sort of.  
  
Free will meant creativity. And so K-2SO had found ways to _creatively_ interpret Cassian’s (or someone else’s) orders in a way that he found satisfactory in the past, when he’d had a mind to.  
  
Cassian had instructed him not to tell anyone about the blaster incident on Jenoport- that being, Cassian’s near suicide attempt, not necessarily the murder of the Stormtrooper.  
  
And he was willing to bet that K-2SO had followed that instruction to the T: When telling Lynch that, well, maybe it would be a bad idea to leave Cassian alone for too long, or that Cassian wasn’t “feeling well”, or- in K-2SO’s agonizingly unsubtle way- started a conversation about how unusual it was for humans to feel a compulsion towards suicidal thoughts and actions… Well, Cassian was willing to bet that the precise words ‘Cassian appeared as though he was about to shoot himself with a blaster after Jenoport’ or any variation thereof probably _never_ came up.  
  
Given how quickly Lynch had jumped to ‘this behavior is disturbing’ when all Cassian had been doing was looking over the edge of the cliff, it was almost certain that a seven-foot tall droid had whispered into his ear.  
  
“You know what happened on Jenoport,” Cassian spat the words out with more venom than was probably wise if he was meant to convince Lynch that he was alright. “Everything went to shit. End of story.”  
  
“I mean afterwards. Did something happen _afterwards?_ ”  
  
“A few things happened between Jenoport and now, you’ll have to be more-”  
  
“God _damn_ it, Andor! Don’t play with me!” Cassian was taken aback by the sudden rage that Lynch was displaying. The most he’d seen the man be before was grumpy. “This isn’t a fucking game! The droid made it sound like you were-”  
  
“What?” Cassian snapped. “Made it sound like _what?_ ”  
  
Lynch walked right up to him and _glared_ into his eyes. “Do you plan on killing yourself?”  
  
“What do you think?”  
  
“I think that if you don’t give me a straight answer I’m going to go straight back to Yavin 4 and tell Draven to keep you out of the field and away from anything you might use to fucking kill yourself.”  
  
“Why the _fuck_ is this any business of yours?” Cassian snarled, throwing his bag to the ground in frustration.  
  
“Oh my-” Lynch turned around, walked a few steps away, then whirled back around and walked right back to where he’d been. “You- Are you _so much_ of a stubborn fucking idiot that you have to ask me that question? ‘Why is it your business that I might throw myself off a cliff’? Really?”  
  
“Yes, I am asking you that. We’ve known each other for a grand total of two weeks, we’re not friends, so I don’t see why you’re so fucking concerned.”  
  
Lynch’s mouth hung open slightly at that, and his expression was one of disbelief. “Holy shit. Holy _shit_ , you are really fucked up, aren’t you?”  
  
If you’d warned Cassian that those words were coming, he still wouldn’t have expected them to hurt as much as they did.  
  
“Oh my God, look who finally put the pieces together! The guy who’s been fighting the Empire since he was six is fucked up!” Cassian clapped exaggeratedly. “You sure hit the fucking target!”  
  
“What the hell is _wrong_ with you?” Lynch fired back. Now they were both shouting, and even though the coast was deserted and there was no one around to hear them, Cassian might have kicked himself for his lack of discretion if he’d had the presence of mind to do so.  
  
Every single pressure-point in Cassian’s head was being mashed, he had been aggravated and on edge from the moment he’d woken up that morning- and it was impossible to specify the sheer diversity of the distressing things he’d felt since killing that Stormtrooper. It wasn’t even that the majority of his anger was directed at Lynch; it was that he was ready to snap, and Lynch’s decision to start ripping him a new asshole right at this moment gave Cassian a convenient excuse to put all of those feeling on him. Cassian had absolutely none of his legendary cool-headedness right now, did not have the presence of mind or willpower to force himself to be calm or tactful towards Lynch.  
  
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with _me?_ Fuck you!”  
  
Or eloquent. Eloquence wasn’t coming very easily either.  
  
“What are you doing?” Cassian ignored him as he picked up his bag again, slinging it over his shoulder and stomping off for his ship. “Cassian! Where the hell are you going? We have a job to do!”  
  
“ _You_ have a job to do,” Cassian snarled over his shoulder. “Apparently I’m not stable enough!”  
  
“You’re right, you’re _not!_ ” Lynch yelled after him.  
  
Those were the last words exchanged between them for a while.  
  
[---]  
  
When he returned to the base, K-2SO was in the hangar waiting.  
  
“Good, you’re back,” The droid greeted, as though he had no reason to expect Cassian to be in a bad mood. “I was going to-”  
  
Cassian shoved past him without a word and kept walking.  
  
“Cassian?”  
  
“Fuck off, Kay,” Cassian snarled.  
  
“What?”  
  
“You heard me!” He never spoke to K-2SO that way. For a moment, it seemed as though the droid was in shock- but then he came around, and it only took a few long strides to catch up with Cassian.  
  
“What’s wrong with you?”  
  
Cassian threw his backpack on the ground and turned to glare at Kay.  
  
“Le dijiste a Lynch. _Le dijiste a Lynch_.” Cassian’s arms were tense. He felt like flailing them to emphasize the level of rage he was working with at the moment, but had regained enough of his composure on the journey back to Yain 4 to keep himself from blatantly signaling his mood to everyone around him. “Te dije que no, y lo hiciste de todos modos. Y me preguntas qué es lo que está mal?”  
  
K-2SO hesitated. But then he said, in Standard, “Of course I did. It was _serious._ You are sui-”  
  
“ ** _No soy un suicida!_** ”  
  
Several heads whipped around, and Cassian flushed. The drawback of using another language to conceal things from other people was that, once people realized you were doing it, they tended to get very curious about what you were so desperate for them to not overhear. And since he was currently surrounded by rebels, amongst which were a multitude of intelligence agents who practically _breathed_ suspicion, that wasn’t the best situation in the world.  
  
It was also not great because all someone needed to do was find someone who spoke Festian, droid or organic, and give a rough reiteration of what Cassian had said, and then he’d be having mandatory counseling sessions with one of the doctors on staff to determine whether or not he was actually a danger to himself. Or worse: They’d remove him from duty entirely pending a complete mental health examination and, if found lacking, Cassian would be indefinitely suspended until he could wrangle his inner demons.  
  
He didn’t want that.  
  
He’d suffered worse things than having to kill a Stormtrooper.  
  
He was fine.  
  
“No se lo digas a nadie más, Kay. _Nadie._ ” Cassian did not wait for a response. He stormed out of the hangar and back to his room, throwing his bag down on the floor and then all but slamming himself down on his bed.  
  
He would have to come up with an excuse for why he was back early. Cassian had no doubt that Lynch had gone on and interviewed the defector anyway, but Draven would want a detailed explanation as to why his usually diligent captain had come home early, and without his Assassin counterpart. And that meant that Cassian would have to find a way to explain that he and Lynch had had a falling out without actually telling the truth about _why_ it had happened.  
  
Cassian was walking a tight-rope and he knew it. Lynch could very easily decide to come to base, or even contact Draven remotely (assuming Draven didn’t contact him first), and tell the truth, and Cassian would be in even deeper shit for lying to a superior, never mind his impulsive, emotion-driven decisions on Dandoran.  
  
The truth of it was, no one was made of stone.  
  
There were Captains and Generals and Sergeants and Lieutenants who people whispered about being unmovable, as unflinching and enigmatic and reserved as a stone statue. And that was certainly how those men and women presented themselves when they were amongst their soldiers.  
  
But everyone had an outlet.  
  
Draven drank. Cassian had seen him really, truly _smashed_ on a few very rare occasions, and each and every time Draven would become a melancholic mute, staring at his glass and, more likely than not, becoming consumed by whatever ugly memories were spinning around in his head. On two occasions Cassian had quietly watched over the General to make sure that he didn’t succumb to alcohol poisoning, or choke to death on his own vomit.  
  
There was Lieutenant Grim, who had been known to lose her temper with a sudden, startling viciousness, to the extent that she had actually been put on probation and threatened with demotion because she had used some rather nasty racial slurs against one of the other Lieutenants, who was a Cilare.  
  
And Sergeant Lilkial, he enjoyed fighting. He _really_ enjoyed fighting. Oh, he’d never _start_ a fight, but he’d definitely finish one, and when he fought in training or sparring sessions… Well, actually, he _didn’t_ fight in training or sparring sessions anymore. He’d been banned for going overboard and actually seriously harming his opponents, as well as himself.  
  
Cassian knew, even as he’d stewed in his own stormy emotions on his way back to Yavin 4 that day, that he’d behaved poorly. He was a captain: His conduct was supposed to be of a higher standard than most. That was why Draven had promoted him at all. Instead he’d lost his temper and thrown his bag down like an angry child and couldn’t even materialize a decent argument for why Lynch was wrong, or why his approach was entirely out of line.  
  
Which all lead to a very uncomfortable idea: That maybe, despite his protests, despite his internal attempts to keep himself in check, Cassian was not mentally or emotionally prepared to carry out his duties anymore.  
  
There were people who couldn’t, really; it got to a point where they self-harmed, or became suicidal, or became dangerously reckless to a point where they put others around them in danger as well, and the top-brass would find out and quietly, honorably discharge them.  
  
The real terror in that possibility came from the simple fact that Cassian had absolutely no _concept_ of what it was to live a “normal” life; he had been with some manner of military outfit since he was six years-old. The concept of being without a cause to fight for was unfathomable to him. There was no future for him that he could see outside of the Rebellion, even if that future was undeniably bleak.  
  
As realistic as he knew the concerns about his mental health were, he had to find a way to broach them with Draven, or with the doctor in such a way that wouldn’t cause them to discharge him. And that would be easier said than done.  
  
_Later_ , Cassian thought, pulling his body into a slightly more comfortable position, and rearranging his head on the pillow. As exhausted as he’d been waking up that day, it was even worse now after his already depleted physical strength had been sapped by the day’s emotions. It didn’t take long before Cassian fell into a deep sleep.  
  
And that sleep, thank the Force, was dreamless.  
  
[---]  
  
When Cassian woke up next, some hours later, it was because those finely honed instincts of his had detected someone standing nearby.  
  
Cassian forced himself awake, driven by a dull pulse of panic, and it took a good minute or two to finally realize that the person in his room, watching him sleep, was none other than K-2SO. The droid was sitting on the chair at Cassian’s desk (normally he didn’t do that, he was heavy enough and the chair was flimsy enough that it could break under his weight) with a plate of food sitting on the desk itself.  
  
“Kay?” Cassian rubbed his eyes. “What? What is it?”  
  
“You should eat something,” K-2SO responded nonchalantly. “You still don’t look very well.” He placed the plate next to Cassian, whose brain was still trying to piece together the information it was receiving. “I’ve put Draven off for the time being,” K-2SO continued, “But you’ll need to come up with an explanation for whatever happened on Dandoran today.”  
  
That was as good as a slap to the face for Cassian. “I’m aware.”  
  
K-2SO locked eyes with him. “Are you, now?”  
  
God, Cassian didn’t have it in him for this right now. The anger had sank away under the weight of his fatigue; he didn’t want a fight. “Yes, Kay,” Cassian responded, dropping his head back to the pillow and staring at the food on his plate. “I am.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
There was something coming. There always was, when he used that tone.  
  
“If you have something to say, just say it, Kay,” The captain remarked. “Get it out and over with.”  
  
K-2SO was still staring at him. After a moment, he said, “You are fully aware of my operating systems, correct?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And you’re aware that I have a spectrum of emotions available to me?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then why do you insist on _hurting_ me, Cassian?”  
  
Cassian blinked. “What?”  
  
K-2SO did not blink back. He blinked as a matter of habit, not necessity (Cassian suspected that this was another thing he had absorbed whilst observing organic behavior), and when he didn’t blink it was unnerving. “You are _hurting_ me, Cassian,” The droid repeated. “You are allowing yourself to suffer mental and emotional distress that could end with the taking of your own life. You are my only friend. The idea of your death distresses and _hurts_ me.”  
  
It spoke greatly to how human K-2SO had become, that he had become so good at using his own emotions to manipulate someone else.  
  
Cassian pushed himself up onto his elbow. “I’m not trying to hurt you, Kay.”  
  
“Your intentions don’t factor into this. Your actions do.” K-2SO did not continue, and it was then that Cassian knew he was in some deep trouble with the droid. K-2SO was a talker, and when he let the silence sit like that, it meant that he’d said _exactly_ what he’d wanted to, and he wanted _you_ to figure out what he meant by it.  
  
So Cassian, once again, went with the only acceptable answer.  
  
“I’m going to talk to one of the doctors, Kay,” He said, even though it troubled him to say it because it was a half-truth: Yes, he would talk to a doctor; no, he might not tell them _everything_ worth mentioning. “I just... I have to be careful what I say. I could lose my job.”  
  
“Maybe you don’t _need_ your job,” K-2SO remarked.  
  
“Where else am I going to go, Kay?”  
  
K-2SO was quiet for a moment. Then, “I do not find that to be a convincing argument, but I accept that attempting to change your opinion on the matter will be about as useless as repeatedly bashing myself against a wall would be in attempting to improve my system performance.” Another pause. “I take it that Lynch has learned a similar lesson?”  
  
Cassian grunted; less because of the lingering irritation he had with the subject and more because his head hurt at the very thought of trying to explain what had happened.  
  
“I suspected as much. If it serves to make you any less angry than I suspect you are, I doubt he’d have been concerned if he didn’t like you.”  
  
The headache was growing. Cassian just grunted again.  
  
K-2SO reached out with one long arm and pushed the plate closer to Cassian. “You should eat. Your weight is already teetering on the edge of what’s considered unfit for active service.”  
  
Cassian’s weight fluctuated from time to time, and the periods where his weight was unusually, concerningly low usually coincided with the periods when he barely slept at night and was consumed with stress during the day.  
  
God, he was going to die young.  
  
“Fine,” Cassian muttered, pushing himself up the rest of the way and yanking the plate onto his lap so roughly that a bit of food fell onto his blanket. “Fine, you win, you win, you manipulative bastard of a droid. I don’t know why I put up with you.”  
  
K-2SO did a startlingly good imitation of an innocent blink.  
  
“Of course you don’t, Cassian,” He said, with a slight flatness to his vocals that Cassian interpreted as amused facetiousness. “Of course you don’t.”  
  
[---]  
  
The next morning, Cassian summoned every bit of his willpower and pulled himself together.  
  
He shoved what food was necessary down his throat, he drank the necessary water to keep himself hydrated, he showered thoroughly, and spent a good ten minutes making sure that he was wearing his I Am a Good Soldier face, and not the I Am Probably Dying On the Inside one he’d seen in the mirror after the shower.  
  
And then, after considerable internal praying to every deity he’d ever heard of, Cassian went to meet with Draven. Being a thoroughly realistic man, one general assumption colored his thoughts about what was about to happen:  
  
_I am fucked._  
  
Fucked, fucked, fucked, oh-so-very _fucked_.  
  
Because Cassian had yet to come up with a brilliant explanation for why he’d cut out halfway through a mission, failed to report back to Draven when he’d returned to base, and had a shouting match with K-2SO in the hangar (which Draven undoubtedly knew about, because there was a _reason_ that Cassian didn’t make friends with people in Rebel Intelligence). And that meant that he was going to have to tell the truth, and telling truth meant that he was going to get chewed to absolute pieces.  
  
It didn’t help when, as he entered the conference room, Draven was already seated on the other side of the table, and did not glance up as Cassian stepped in. Draven was a man of few words, but many actions, and so it was in the small things that his soldiers had learned to read his mood.  
  
And right now, Cassian was clocking it at ‘not happy’.  
  
“Andor,” Draven acknowledged Cassian’s presence clearly, but with a hard edge to his voice. “Sit.”  
  
Fucked. Absolutely, positively fucked.  
  
Cassian sat, and almost wished that K-2SO was there. Draven didn’t make his dislike and distrust of the droid secret, but at least K-2SO would be able to offer up the odd bit of snark to keep Cassian from snapping under the General’s ire.  
  
The General flipped open a manila folder on the table and pulled out a paper. It was never good to break eye-contact in moments like these, when Draven was in a mood and expecting his officer’s undivided attention, but Cassian spared a glance down to the paper and saw that, from the looks of it, it looked like a debriefing statement. But a quick glance couldn’t tell him who it belonged to.  
  
Draven closed the folder, and then brought up one hand to his face, leaning lightly on it, fingers sitting near his nose and mouth. From the look on Draven’s face, one could easily mistake him as being relatively unbothered by Cassian’s actions, or at least not irritated enough to warrant concern. Cassian preferred to see it as the calm before the storm.  
  
“Why didn’t you report in when you returned to base yesterday?”  
  
Cassian took a breath. “Things didn’t go quite as planned.”  
  
“In what way?”  
  
“Lynch and I, we, uh… Had a disagreement.”  
  
Draven didn’t speak for a moment.  
  
Cassian’s eyes were locked with the General’s, but he could hear the fingers of his free hand drumming on the table.  
  
“And what was the nature of this disagreement, Captain Andor?”  
  
That he’d used Cassian’s rank wasn’t unimportant. It was a deliberate jab, a reminder that Cassian had only very recently been promoted to his captaincy and that this incident was maybe causing Draven to think he’d made a mistake in doing so.  
  
“It was…” Cassian shut his eyes. He _knew_ how bad this was going to sound. “…It was personal, sir.”  
  
“Personal.” The word came out low, short, and flat. Anyone who knew Draven as well as Cassian did could read and translate his little cues easily, and the message he was sending Cassian now, with that one, single word, was, ‘Are you fucking with me, Andor? Are you actually fucking with me right now? Did you actually just tell me that you allowed _personal_ feelings to interfere with a mission? Why exactly do you think I promoted you, because it wasn’t with the intention of enabling fuck-ups like this.’  
  
(Alright, so maybe there was some elaboration and extrapolation there, but Cassian had been working with Draven for a good, long while, and though he’d rarely been chewed out himself he’d seen it happen to more than a few people. He _knew_ Draven.)  
  
That being said- and frankly, there was no greater indicator that he wasn’t doing well mentally than this- Cassian’s temper spiked sharply. “If I recall correctly, you _told_ me to build a rapport with Lynch- ‘keep it up’, you said.”  
  
Draven’s eyes narrowed, and altogether his expression was reminiscent of the dark clouds rolling in before a hurricane: Those under Draven’s command called it his ‘Emperor Palpatine’ face- mostly because if you were unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of it, you’d be wishing it was the Emperor you were facing down with instead.  
  
It worked. Cassian had never regretted anything quite so quickly in his life.  
  
“Yes, Andor,” Draven said, and Cassian could practically _feel_ the iciness of the words on his skin, “I _did_ ask you to keep being friendly with Lynch- because I was under the impression that I didn’t need to tell you where the _line_ was.”  
  
There were times when Cassian wondered if this was what it was like to have a father as an adult. Draven always, _always_ seemed to have the right answer to undercut any righteous objection that Cassian might make.  
  
As it was, Cassian _did_ know the difference between ‘keep getting friendly with this person’ and ‘become personally involved to the point where an alliance might be broken or otherwise damaged because of your falling out’. The thing was, Cassian rarely came within a mile of that line, never mind crossing it, and so this was the first time he’d ever needed to get a ‘leave your shit at the door’ lecture from Draven.  
  
“Frankly, Andor, this disturbs me,” The General leveled a look that was more stern than angry at Cassian now. “You come back from Jenoport with guts all over you, and less than twenty-four hours later, you’re having a cat-fight with an Assassin over “ _personal_ issues” and storming off before you complete your mission- and not reporting back when you returned to base. I had to look at the hangar’s log and draw my own conclusions about when you’d returned. This isn’t like you.”  
  
The word ‘guts’ made Cassian’s throat close. In retrospect, if there was anyone who was going to be aware of what a dead man’s innards splattered all over clothing looked like, it was going to be a General with a lengthy military career.  
  
“So the conclusion you’ve forced me to draw is that maybe you need some time away from the field, an at least one appointment with a doctor.”  
  
“I’m fine, sir,” Cassian said quietly.  
  
Draven’s eyes were hawkish, piercing and stern. “Bullshit. None of us are alright, Andor, and you know that.”  
  
“On a sliding scale of unwellness, I am better than I could be, sir,” Cassian said, a little louder this time.  
  
“Being ‘better than you could be’ does _not_ imply your fitness for being in the field, Andor.”  
  
Cassian opened his mouth to retort, to argue, to say _anything_ to defeat that idea.  
  
But he had nothing.  
  
Draven expression relaxed slightly. “Force, man, do you think you’re the first soldier who’s done this? The first who’s misrepresented the state of their physical and mental health to me, so as not to be taken out of the fight because you haven’t the faintest idea what you’d do without it? Don’t insult me, Andor, you are _far_ from the first, and you won’t be the last.”  
  
Cassian said nothing. Draven had made up his mind and any further insistence to the contrary would only make him mad.  
  
Draven’s verdict came down swiftly. “You’re being taken off active duty for a month.”  
  
Cassian’s mouth fell open. “A _month?_ ”  
  
The General was unflinching. “Yes, Andor, a month. During which time you will undergo a complete physical and psychological evaluation to determine whether or not you should continue your fieldwork.”  
  
Cassian could have screamed. This was everything he’d been afraid of: A month could easily become ‘forever’ if he didn’t clear the evaluations. But protesting, insisting that he was fine would not only make Draven angry, it would confirm to him that Cassian was in poorer shape than he’d thought. Someone with nothing to hide would have no reason to dodge a psych evaluation.  
  
“Right,” Cassian blurted, unable to keep some degree of desolation and defeat from his voice. “Right, a month, I’ll do the evaluations, right. I understand, sir.”  
  
Draven locked eyes with him, and the General’s gaze was something between serious and sympathetic.  
  
“I certainly hope you do, Cassian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Le dijiste a Lynch: “You told Lynch.”
> 
> Te dije que no, y lo hiciste de todos modos. Y me preguntas qué es lo que está mal: “I told you no, and you did it anyway. And you ask me what’s wrong?”
> 
> No soy un suicida: “I’m not suicidal!”
> 
> No se lo digas a nadie más, Kay. Nadie: “Do not tell anyone else, Kay. No one.”
> 
> Again, there’s a possibility that I’ve mistranslated some of the Spanish here. Let me know if that’s the case.


	5. Chapter 5

Cassian did not see Lynch for nearly a month.  
  
And he was fine with that; there was something that stung, surprisingly deep, about how Lynch had handled what had happened on Dandoran.  
  
Cassian liked Lynch, they’d been getting friendly- and _just_ as he was starting to let his guard down a bit, Lynch had decided to jump down his throat without asking questions, coming at him with all the delicacy and grace of an AT-AT walker.  
  
Cassian wasn’t sensitive. He could (and had) taken all manners of insult and aggression towards his person before, ranging from the color of his hair to the way he held his damn blaster; he had taken it and dealt it back with equal force on more than one occasion. But then, the people making those sorts of remarks were not friends: They were coworkers, or strangers, or enemies. The only people with the power to hurt him were the ones he considered friends, like K-2SO.  
  
And Lynch, for all Cassian’s attempts to the contrary, had been inching closer to ‘friend’ than Cassian was comfortable admitting (he’d also, for a brief period of sexually-frustrated time, become a slightly bizarre object of sexual attraction, but Cassian had had a few of those in his lifetime.)  
  
 _“You really are fucked up, aren’t you?”_  
  
Like it was a foregone conclusion. Like he’d already suspected that Cassian was fucked up. Like he’d already read Cassian like a book and was just waiting for the moment when Cassian would confirm his theory.  
  
Cassian knew he was fucked up. Lynch didn’t need to rub it in.  
  
Doctor Aeglian, the one assigned to figuring out whether or not Cassian could be trusted with a blaster at any point in the future, probably agreed, even if she wasn’t allowed to say it out loud. “I sense there’s more to this than you’re telling me, Cassian,” Was what she’d said when he’d calmly laid out (with selective details) the basic story of what had happened on Jenoport.  
  
 _No shit,_ Cassian had thought, forcing his face to stay as neutral as possible. He was a spy; it wasn’t in his nature to open up to people so easily. That was what had surprised him about Callum, the fact that he’d managed to become reasonably comfortable around him so quickly.  
  
“There’s not much more to it than that,” Cassian said, then added on the fly, “Unless you count the fact that I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager.”  
  
Aeglian nodded, conceding the point. “That is significant, I suppose.”  
  
 _You suppose_ , Cassian thought, now narrowly managing to suppress a laugh. _You **suppose?**_ Aeglian hadn’t seen much of combat, then. Her type was the kind to clean up the psychological mess following the battle; she had never been on the field to see the sort of _shit_ people like Cassian saw, and he didn’t know whether he begrudged her that or envied her.  
  
The evaluations were a minefield, mostly because he was constantly dancing around certain topics, quickly running the truth through his head and editing it into something acceptable that he could repeat without being kicked out of the Rebellion for psychological reasons. It was clear that Aeglian thought he was holding things back, but frankly, she ought to have known that that would be a complication from the beginning given who she was talking to.  
  
“Captain Andor,” She said, one afternoon during a particularly unfruitful session, “I can only help you if you’re willing to help yourself.”  
  
“Perhaps you and I simply have a different definition of what’s helpful,” Cassian responded coolly.  
  
“If you don’t take steps to improve your mental and emotional wellbeing, you could very easily lose your place in this military outfit regardless of the state of your physical health.”  
  
“I am aware of that, doctor,” Cassian responded with a slight edge to his voice that only hinted at the burst of rage the remark had awoken in him. As badly as he didn’t want to prove her right, his emotions were strangely out of whack; had he not taken care to catch himself just then, he might have yelled at her, the suggestion that he wasn’t aware of what was at stake for him triggering an inordinate amount of anger from him. “I am very, _very_ aware of that.”  
  
“Than perhaps you ought to be showing more involvement in the process,” Aeglian suggested, and Cassian knew he wasn’t imagining the condescension in her voice when she spoke. “Because as of yet, I’m not seeing any great strides of progress as far as your sessions are going.”  
  
 _What the hell do you want from me?!_ Cassian wanted to bellow at her. Did she want him to forget years of training, years of moving from place to place with different resistance groups, orphaned by the Empire and only able to keep himself out of an Imperial orphanage by how well he was able to make himself useful to those groups? Cassian couldn’t remember a time when he’d _ever_ easily and readily trusted anyone, never mind strangers he’d only recently met. That was why he was a _spy_.  
  
If she thought she could magically make almost twenty years of conditioning disappear in a week or two, Aeglian was deluding herself. And if she thought that provoking him by making low-key threats about recommending against him returning to active-duty, then she would find that Cassian was even _less_ cooperative; he didn’t respond well to threats, regardless of who made them.  
  
In the meantime, being off active-duty was driving him even crazier than he was already. Being ‘off active-duty’ more or less translated to ‘bureaucratic paperwork hell’ and Cassian was vaguely curious if this was designed to preserve his mental health or make it bad enough that they could officially kick him out.  
  
The only decent part of the whole thing was that K-2SO stayed with him almost constantly, and the companionship was enough to distract him somewhat from the tedium of the paperwork. Cassian had a suspicion that Draven might have instructed K-2SO to stay near Cassian and observe him, as well as possibly report back if he displayed any particularly unusual or startling behavior. But K-2SO was Cassian’s only friend, so any benefit from his company outweighed any duplicity or annoying habits on the part of the droid.  
  
“By the Maker, did Sergeant Laoluce learn how to write from a half-wit Jawa half-high on hallucinatory weeds?”  
  
…Most of the time.  
  
“ _Keep your voice down_ ,” Cassian hissed. He might have instructed K-2SO to speak Festian if he wanted to insult someone, but now Cassian was paranoid that more people in the Rebellion knew his language better than he’d previously believed and he wasn’t speaking it behind anyone’s back without some recon first. “If you keep insulting people you’re inevitably going to end up having a very bad _accident_ , Kay, and with all this paperwork I just won’t be able to investigate it properly.” Cassian wasn’t proud at how scathing he got at the end of that sentence, but _damn_ did he hate paperwork.  
  
“Andor.” Draven was standing in the doorway of the office where the officers worked on forms and reports and whatnot. Nobody else looked up when the General approached, but that didn’t mean they weren’t listening. “Let’s chat.”  
  
“Oh my _God_ , do you people just have no sense of humor?” K-2SO drawled, apparently thinking that Draven was about to chew Cassian out for the remark about Sergeant Laoluce.  
  
“What?”  
  
Cassian smacked K-2SO’s shoulder warningly before getting up and walking over to the door. “Nothing, General, Kay just has a circuit loose.”  
  
“As usual,” Draven grumbled, and Cassian heard K-2SO mutter something in Festian that, if he’d heard it correctly, was incredibly rude (and anatomically impossible). “Andor, outside please.” The General pulled Cassian into the hall and shut the door to the office behind him. He then fixed Cassian with a look that was both stern and wary. “There is a contingent of resistance fighters on Naboo who have been located and more or less officially recruited to the Rebellion by the Assassins.”  
  
Cassian hesitated, thinking he knew where this was heading but unsure, then said, “…That’s good, sir.”  
  
“It is,” Draven agreed pointedly. “And if I recall correctly, you were stationed on Naboo when you were posing as an Imperial Officer.”  
  
“I was,” Cassian said, heart-rate increasing- this seemed to be going _exactly_ where he thought it was.  
  
“Could you, with confidence, navigate the city and guide the fighters to a Rebellion vessel if I sent you there?”  
  
Cassian rapidly, mentally flipped through his memory of Naboo and its layout. “Yes, sir, I believe I could.”  
  
“Even if it’s Lynch who’s going to be leading them to you?”  
  
Cassian froze for half a second, and then caught himself. “Yes, sir, I can.”  
  
Draven gaze was so dark that a lesser man might have flinched from it. “If I were to ask this of you, I don’t need to tell you that I expect you to, at the very least, be _professional_ with Lynch, correct, Andor?”  
  
Cassian swallowed. “No, sir, you don’t need to tell me.” He wasn’t completely suicidal anymore, and if he was, there were easier ways to kill himself than provoking Davits Draven.  
  
“Then it’s yours, Andor. I’m reinstating you early- But don’t think because I’m letting you back a week early that I won’t take you off active-duty the moment you get back if you have another incident.”  
  
“Of course, sir.”  
  
“Then off you go. And Andor?”  
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Don’t cock this up.”  
  
“No, sir, I won’t.”  
  
[---]  
  
Naboo was a beautiful planet.  
  
The stunning foliage and nature on the planet had been a perk of working an otherwise nerve-wracking mission, where Cassian had done his level best to blend in with a multitude of Imperial Officers who knew more than he ever would. It was that mission that had gotten him promoted to Captain, and the mission on which he’d met K-2SO; arguably it was one of, if not the most, important mission he’d ever gone on.  
  
Today, however, was probably going to be different.  
  
It was raining buckets, and even as he was watching the trees speed by outside of the ship he was anticipating the miserable trudging he’d have to go through in order to get to the rendezvous point, which would involve meeting with a man he was in a poor place with. But he took a breath and tried to keep himself calm.  
  
 _We’re not going to do this,_ Cassian thought. _We’re not doing this bullshit today. If I play my cards right, I’ll be unequivocally back on active-duty when I get back to Yavin, and I am not letting Lynch fuck this up for me._  
  
So he waited for the ship to land, got his gear, assured the pilot that he would be back as quickly as possible, and went off in search of the resistance fighters.  
  
The trek was every bit as miserable as he had predicted it would be. The dirt on Naboo reacted strangely to water, turned it to something less solid than mud, but sticker and even more difficult to walk through. More than once Cassin was forced to stop and physically wrench his leg from the mud, only to take two steps before it happened again. He was making terrible time.  
  
 _Don’t think about it,_ Cassian told himself. _Don’t think at all. Just get there._ He set himself in a sort of auto-pilot mode where the goal was taking one step at a time, and bugger the time it took to get where he needed to go. The one bonus to this scenario was that there weren’t likely to be many Imperials patrolling the forest today. And given that this was Palpatine’s home-world, security was usually tight, but as a result they were more confident that nobody would be stupid enough to try anything overt.  
  
The bright side of this long, arduous journey was the simple fact that- at least for the time being- Cassian was alone. He spent so much time and energy dragging himself out of the mud that he didn’t have any leftover to dedicate to other, less pleasant thoughts. This was and had been for a long time Cassian’s preferred method for stress management: Distract one’s self from whatever it was that was causing the stress and hope that the feelings and the memories that brought them on would bleed away and become faint enough not to matter in due time.  
  
Though, in fairness, the bit with the Stormtrooper was a little more intense than most. Chances were, the memories of that incident were going to be with him for a long time; probably until the day he died (which, admittedly, would probably be sooner rather than later, given the average lifespan of someone his rank and department). It would be an incident he would take to his grave, one of those Things that left an indelible mark on Cassian’s life, whether it changed it in some way or not.  
  
Eventually, after what felt like (and probably was just about) a few hours, Cassian heard voices over the rain. He looked up and saw movement in the trees, and kept one hand on his blaster as he approached. It was only once he got closer and saw the bedraggled men and women amongst the shrubs that he knew he’d found who he was looking for. “You the resistance fighters?” He called over the rain.  
  
They eyed him warily. “Who are you?”  
  
“I’m with the Rebellion.”  
  
“How do we know that?”  
  
“I can vouch for him!” And from the group, having blended in so seamlessly that Cassian hadn’t even noticed him at first, stepped Lynch. He turned to the fighters and said, “He’s with the Rebellion, I’ve worked with him before.”  
  
“We have,” Cassian confirmed, not looking at Lynch as he said it.  
  
The resistance fighters were still hesitant- that was good, they were smart enough to think before jumping in headfirst- but then slowly started picking up their things and getting ready to head out. Cassian turned to make sure he knew the path they needed to take back to the ship, and nearly ran into Lynch as he did.  
  
Their eyes met. Lynch’s gaze, to Cassian’s surprise, was apologetic.  
  
“Cassian,” He said, lowly.  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
Cassian wasn’t in the mood for it. He hadn’t been in the mood for anything that had gone on that day, least of all this fucking mission on this fucking planet in the fucking rain and cold; but he didn’t have a choice about that. What he _did_ have a choice in was whether or not he had to listen to Lynch pull some bullshit apology out of his ass for _behaving_ like an ass; Cassian’s behavior had been unbecoming, certainly, but that didn’t make Lynch’s approach towards a man he believed to be suicidal any less idiotic or hurtful.  
  
“I don’t want to hear it,” Cassian snapped. “Leave me alone.”  
  
He turned and started trudging, and Lynch said nothing else.  
  
The trek back to the ship was slightly more miserable than before, if only because now Cassian had to keep a particularly careful eye out to make sure nobody was lagging, or wandering off because they were having trouble seeing through the rain, or that there weren’t any Imperial cruisers diving in nearby on patrol. Cassian badly wanted to go on autopilot again, making his only priority one more footstep at a time, but there was just too much to be concerned about.  
  
If the trip there had felt like hours, this one felt like a goddamn _eternity._  
  
But, inevitably, the ship came into view again, and Cassian would have been happy to just collapse onto the floor of the cabin and stay there until they’d returned to Yavin. Instead, he pulled open the door and ushered the fighters inside, pointedly not looking any of them in the eyes knowing whose he’d eventually be forced to look at. Granted, it wasn’t difficult to avoid looking anyone in the eye when there was so much rain still falling.  
  
Once everyone was on and he couldn’t see anyone else nearby, Cassian pulled himself up and into the craft. “Everyone accounted for?” He asked no one in particular. Naturally, one particular person he still wasn’t looking at spoke up.  
  
“We’re good, everyone’s here.”  
  
Wordlessly, Cassian poked his head into the cockpit where, thankfully, the pilot had managed to avoid falling asleep. “We’re good, go ahead and pull up. I’ll contact the base and let them know we’re bringing them back.” Cassian moved to the transmitter and tapped out the message, only sneaking a few glances at the cabin to look over the resistance fighters a little more carefully. They looked no more or less suspicious than the average Rebel fighter; the lifestyle had a way of leaving its mark on a person, physically and aesthetically, whether they liked it or not.  
  
 _They better have been vetted properly, Lynch, or I’m going to airlock you._  
  
Cassian finished the transmission, pleased that it had gone off without any unnecessary complications (nature aside), and finally, gratefully took a seat towards the back of the cabin. Whether they’d been vetted or not, spend enough time in the Rebellion and anyone would be nervous sitting with their back to a stranger, especially an armed one. He shrugged off his pack and was in the process of wiggling out of his jacket when someone sat down beside him.  
  
 _Damn it._  
  
“Look, Cassian, I’m sorry,” Lynch said quietly, apparently mindful that they had company.  
  
Cassian said nothing.  
  
“I don’t know why I went so hard at you about the Jenoport thing. It wasn’t the best way to talk to a guy who I thought was suicidal.”  
  
“I would say not.” Cassian poured every bit of iciness he had in him into those words. There was a small, traitorous part of him that crumbled at the idea that Lynch was concerned about his continued well-being. But he had a funny fucking way of showing his concern and Cassian didn’t need anyone jumping down his throat right now- he had Draven and K-2SO for that. He still hadn’t entirely managed to shake the idea of putting a blaster to his temple and ending it.  
  
“If it makes you feel any better, Aguilar cursed me out again. Prim and proper as people were on his home-world five-hundred years ago, he’s got a pretty foul mouth.”  
  
Cassian was momentarily tempted to ask what planet Lynch and Aguilar came from, but he determinedly kept his mouth shut.  
  
“He said that I was being an inconsiderate asshole, and that I…” Lynch trailed off, pressing one hand to his mouth and the other hand curling tightly on his lap. “It’s- I didn’t-” He abruptly turned his head to the side, and all Cassian could see out of the corner of his eye was hood. “It didn’t work when it was me, so why the fuck was I expecting it to work with you?”  
  
It took Cassian a second to mull over the implications of what Lynch had just said. “You’ve thought about it.” He didn’t have to clarify what he meant.  
  
Lynch nodded. “I did.”  
  
“You’re an Assassin,” Cassian said flatly. “Killing people is your _job_.”  
  
Lynch whipped his head around, and the same anger Cassian had seen last week was back again in full force. “It’s your job sometimes too, but that really doesn’t make it any fucking easier, now does it?” There was that same unconstrained sort of savagery in the way Lynch spoke; Cassian had clearly touched a nerve.  
  
“No,” He snarled in response, his voice rising steadily, “And people being complete _fucking_ assholes to me after the fact when I already feel like the galaxy’s biggest piece of shit _doesn’t help me either!_ ”  
  
The others on the ship, who had been sneaking glances out of the corners of their eyes, now didn’t bother to hide their surprise as they turned and looked directly at the pair of them. Cassian would have been embarrassed if he wasn’t beyond the point of fuck-giving at this point.  
  
Lynch deflated after he’d spoken, anger bleeding out and disappearing until all that was left was an expression of tired sadness. Cassian felt another pulse of rage, mixed with something else that was hot and painful: He was angry, and he wanted a fight. He didn’t want Lynch to be nice to him right now, didn’t want him to be kind and sympathetic; he wanted to battle it out and scream himself hoarse give some sort of outlet to the _pain_ that was in his head and heart.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Lynch mumbled again, rubbing his eyes. “I’m doing it again. What I said before, that wasn’t entirely true: I went hard on you about Jenoport because…” He sighed deeply and shrugged. “Anger’s easy for me. It works for me. It’s my go-to whenever things get to be too much.”  
  
“You sound like a fucking therapist,” Cassian said, making his words as thorny as possible.  
  
“Yeah, I know, don’t remind me,” Lynch grunted. “I’m sure they’d love to get a peek inside my skull, dig out all the muck and figure out how I’ve kept from going completely nuts.”  
  
“You have regular conversations with an invisible ancestor that you claim to be something between a ghost and a hallucination. You _are_ nuts,” Cassian spat, with no hint of humor to soften the words. He didn’t want them to be soft. He wanted them to sting and cut, the way ‘you really are fucked up, aren’t you?’ had stung and cut him. He wanted Lynch to believe that Cassian thought he was crazy.  
  
There were times when Cassian wished that he was more of an asshole than he was. Because if he were a serious, dedicated asshole, he wouldn’t have felt nearly as bad about killing that Stormtrooper as he did; he also probably wouldn’t have felt as horribly ashamed of himself as he did when he saw a genuine, unmistakable flash of _hurt_ in Lynch’s eyes at his words.  
  
Suddenly, the anger was gone, nowhere to be found, as though it had never been there in the first place. Now Cassian’s eyes were hot and wet and his chest felt tight. The pendulum had swung from ‘I am going to beat the shit out of the next person, place, or thing that crosses me’ to ‘I am going to start crying like a baby if someone asks me what time it is’ in a matter of seconds.  
  
Stars, he shouldn’t be in the field. He really, truly still wasn’t mentally or emotionally ready for it right now, however not-terrible he’d felt for the last few weeks. He was going to get himself or someone else killed. Much as it would kill him to do it, the responsible thing to do would be for Cassian to pull Draven aside when they got back to Yavin 4 and admit that he needed more recovery time before he was sent into the field again. He’d never asked for it before- he’d probably _needed_ it before, but he’d never asked for it because that would mean admitting that it was too much, that he wasn’t strong enough to do what he needed to do and not break under the pressure.  
  
And he was probably going to have to talk to Aeglian again.  
  
Shit.  
  
“I’m sorry.” Cassian whispered it because if he’d spoken any louder Lynch would have been able to hear the unsteadiness in his voice. “I shouldn’t have said that.”  
  
“It’s fine. You’re not wrong.” The mild, guarded way Lynch spoke and the fact that he had turned to look away from him pushed at Cassian _hard_ , and he couldn’t stop a couple of tears from falling. He quickly turned his head and wiped them away, focused on  
the pattern and instruments on the wall across from him and breathed slowly so as not to make it obvious that his nose was running. At this rate he was going to have a full-scale breakdown in the middle of the ship.  
  
Fuck talking to Draven, the moment they got back to base he was going to his room and going to bed. He could report to Draven about the mission and his mental state later.  
  
“No,” Cassian sniffed. “I’m sorry, Lynch.”  
  
There was a pause, a hesitation, and then Lynch turned to face him again, reached up, and pushed his hood back. It fell around his shoulders, revealing short-cropped coppery-brown hair. Cassian stared; this was the first time he’d ever seen Lynch without the hood. His eyes seemed even bluer than before, not dulled or darkened by the shadow of his hood.  
  
“I prefer Callum.”  
  
[---]  
  
Individual rooms on Yavin 4 were slightly larger than a broom closet ( _only_ slightly), and usually reserved for officers. It reduced the likelihood of someone saying something of a delicate nature in their sleep, or some classified document or item accidentally being dropped and then picked up by a curious roommate.  
  
Callum really wasn’t supposed to be in Cassian’s room, but then, he also wasn’t supposed to have known Cassian’s full name when they met in the bar, or his age, or any of the other things he’d inexplicably known about Cassian when they’d met. Cassian dropped onto the bed and curled up into an upright ball, tucking his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Callum pulled the chair away from Cassian’s tiny desk and plopped down into it, forearm propped up on the back of the chair and head propped on his hand.  
  
It was surprising how much a small physical change could change one’s view of a person: Without the hood, Callum didn’t look like a mysterious master Assassin, didn’t look scary or threatening at all; he looked like a normal guy in a very elaborate cloak. The effect was currently doubled by the casual, inelegant way he was sitting in the chair, which made him look more like a barfly than a killer.  
  
“You were born on Fest, right?”  
  
One day, Cassian was going to ask him how the _fuck_ he knew all of these things about him. But right now it seemed as though they were about to get back on good terms, and he wasn’t going to ruin the conciliatory mood. “Right.”  
  
“What was it like?’  
  
“Cold. And loud.” Fest was densely populated. You couldn’t step out your door without bumping into someone, and there was always the low hum of vehicles or machinery or people in the background of every day life. When Cassian had first left his home-world, it had been unnerving how quiet it was on other worlds; he’d found it nearly impossible to focus with everything so _quiet_ around him, or sleep either. The silence was unnatural to him, an indicator that something was terribly wrong.  
  
He still didn’t like too much quiet. Except that now it was because thoughts he’d rather not have began creeping back into his head from where he’d banished them.  
  
“Do you miss it?”  
  
“Sometimes.”  
  
He watched Callum’s eyes roamed over the meager contents of the room. There wasn’t much; Cassian had few personal possessions, and of the furniture, there was the bed, desk, chair, and drawer where he kept his clothing. Weapons had to be returned to their rightful places when they weren’t in use; half of it, Cassian knew, was theft-prevention, but he suspected the other half was to stop anyone from doing what he’d strongly considered doing before.  
  
After the silence had ticked on for a few more minutes, Callum took a deep breath and finally launched into something he’d clearly been waiting to say:  
  
“My father killed my mother when I was seven.”  
  
Cassian’s eyes snapped open. Callum was looking at the wall.  
  
“The Templars- I’ve mentioned them, right? They’d found out where we were living, and they were looking for people with Assassin ancestry. So he killed my mom, and he was going to kill me too, but he couldn’t do it. Told me to run. So I ran.” He folded his hands on his lap. “From then on I was bounced in and out of children’s homes. Got into trouble. Joined gangs, robbed some places. Hurt people.”  
  
Still not looking Cassian in the eye, Callum readjusted himself so that he was sitting face-forward in the chair, slumping down into it. “Finally caught up with me about seven years back. There was this, uh… Pimp. Complete asshole- a lot of pimps are. But this guy was a piece of work. He was really shitty to the prostitutes he managed. And I was at the bar, and I watched him, ten feet away from me… He’s got this girl, and she can’t be more than sixteen, right? He slams her head down on the bar, and he’s screaming at her, threatening her, and she’s crying…”  
  
He was getting lost in the memory. Cassian had seen it before; this wasn’t his first time hearing someone’s life-story. “And so I decided, like… That girl is fucking terrified. And this guy is a piece of _shit._ She doesn’t deserve to be scared, and he doesn’t deserve to live. So I killed him.” He crossed his arms. “That was the first time. And he deserved to die, you know. He was a rapist. He was an abusive piece of shit. He was a waste of space and oxygen.”  
  
Callum squirmed in his seat and glared down at the desk. “But killing him- I still have nightmares about it. I used a knife. It wasn’t as fast as I thought it was going to be. You’ve probably seen the holos, the fake-ass fucking murders they show; I thought it was going to be like that. I’d never killed anyone before- that was the kind of thing you’d get executed for. It was bloody, and awful, he begged…”  
  
Silence. Cassian said nothing, waited for Callum to continue.  
  
“He deserved to die. But I’m not glad that I did it. You know what I mean?”  
  
“Yes.” Cassian knew exactly what he meant. He knew it in his _bones_.  
  
“’S like I said: You’re not the only one who’s done bad shit. You’re not the only one who’s considered the idea that the galaxy might be better off without you. But I didn’t have a chance: I got caught, and I got tried, and I got sentenced to execution. The planet I was on, did it the chemical way.”  
  
Cassian shuddered. Execution in general was an ugly subject, but the chemical option had always struck him as especially chilling: Strapping you to a table, sticking a needle into your arm and letting you watch as poison seeped into your veins- the idea made him nauseous. At least on the wrong end of a firing squad one generally wasn't strapped down.  
  
“That’s how the Templars got me. They paid the guards off and switched out the poison with something else, something that wouldn’t kill me.” Callum wasn’t facing him, but Cassian could see the edge of a humorless smile on his face. “But nobody told me shit, so up until the moment the drug knocked me out, I _really_ did think that I was dying.”  
  
“Fuck,” Cassian remarked hollowly, unsure of what else he could offer.  
  
Callum snorted. “‘Fuck’ sums it up pretty well. I killed a fucking asshole who deserved to die much worse than what I gave him, but I regretted killing him, then I got to be executed for it, and then I got to be a guest of the Templars for a week. That’s how Aguilar and I came to be buddies.”  
  
“What does he look like? Aguilar?” It occurred to him that up until now, Aguilar had only been a name to Cassian. He had no idea what Callum saw when he looked at him.  
  
“Like me, actually. But his complexion’s a bit darker, hair’s longer and darker- never takes his hood down, so you wouldn’t know- he’s got a different cloak, and because he comes from a time on his home-planet before the advent of decent hygiene-” Callum halted, smiling benignly as- Cassian presumed- Aguilar gave him a few choice words about his hygiene, “-he looks pretty dirty. And he’s missing his ring-finger on his right hand because the Assassins of old were crazy motherfuckers who thought cutting off a finger was a good way to test your loyalty.” Another pause; Callum looked bored as he rolled his eyes over his shoulder to look at the air behind him. “You can say it until you’re blue in the face, Aguilar, doesn’t make it any less crazy. You realize that tradition stopped because people were dropping dead of infection, right?”  
  
“Moussa,” Cassian remarked slowly, “He and the others, they have a- An _Aguilar_ too, don’t they? I saw Moussa talking to himself one day, like you do.”  
  
“That they do.”  
  
“Is that why you’re a squadron?”  
  
“Yeah. I mean, we’re a group because we’re close, and we’re close because…” Callum shrugged. “I can talk to them. They understand- and a handful of them I met when we were being held by the Templars. They get it. You don’t have a lot of people to talk to about this shit, though, do you?”  
  
“Not really. Mostly it’s just been me and Kay.”  
  
Which was great, really, because K-2SO was a good friend, but there were some things that the droid just couldn’t give him- not _because_ he was a droid, necessarily, but often because of his personality and inclinations. K-2SO acted very human in a lot of respects, but there were still a lot of nuances in human behavior and decision making that he just didn’t _get_ , and that made it difficult for Cassian to explain himself to him. K-2SO did not grasp the need for deception when not facing an enemy; he saw no issue with, more or less, ratting Cassian out to the medics or to Draven when he was hurt, instead of just allowing him to take care of it himself. Hell, K-2SO was the reason they were having this conversation, probably because he had not been able to grasp why he should keep such a potentially dangerous secret to himself (and even then, in fairness given his track-record, he’d actually done pretty well keeping quiet this time).  
  
“What did he tell you? Kay?”  
  
Callum smiled gently. “You sure you want to know?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Well, uh… His exact words were ‘Have you ever known a human to kill themselves before?’ I said yes, and he said, ‘Well I haven’t, so go speak to Cassian before he does something stupid, because he won’t listen to me. Maybe if another human says it he’ll listen.’ I might be paraphrasing a little.”  
  
“It sounds about right.”  
  
Callum looked Cassian up and down for a moment, and then said, “So… Why did you- I mean, you were fine before Jenoport, more or less. And then afterwards you looked like complete hell. What happened that made you want to…?”  
  
Cassian’s breath caught in his throat. He stared at Callum for a moment, unable to articulate any sort of answer to the question. He felt his chest starting to get tight, mind starting to get fuzzy; one of the few useful things Aeglian had managed to teach him was some breathing techniques he could use to stave them off (panic attacks were nothing scandalous to admit to, given that half the people on Yavin had been known to have them from time to time).  
  
“Shit, sorry, you don’t have to,” Callum assured him. “Seriously, if it’s too much it’s fine, you don’t have to-”  
  
“I do,” Cassian snapped once he’d managed to stave off the attack enough that he could speak. “I _do_ have to talk about it. This is what I do. What does it say about me if I can’t talk about it?”  
  
“I don’t think it makes you any…” Callum scratched his head, thought for a moment. “Turn around.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Turn around. Talk to the wall instead of looking at me. Might make it easier.”  
  
Cassian huffed, a half-sigh, half-chuckle. “This is ridiculous,” He whispered, but scooted until he was facing the wall anyway.  
  
“So what happened?”  
  
Cassian stared intently at the wall and let the quiet after the question drag on. He tried to forget that Callum was in the room with him. He tried to form the words in his brain, and tried to force his lungs and mouth to speak them aloud.  
  
But he couldn’t.  
  
His brain was entirely preoccupied with the vivid, potent, downright _graphic_ memory of the Stormtrooper in the grips of those powerful spasms, splattering blood and brains all over Cassian’s jacket and face, and how Cassian had tried to end it and how long it had taken-  
  
And so he did exactly what he’d done before: Cassian barely made it off the bed before he was retching into the small garbage can next to the desk.  
  
It was a bit worse than last time, probably because he actually had something in his stomach to throw up this time; the nausea was like a punch to the gut, not simply uncomfortable, but remarkably _painful_ to experience, just as it had been on Jenoport. Cassian shuddered violently, grasping the sides of the can tightly so as not to fall over. It was only when the shaking had died down a bit that he felt the hand on his back and realized that Callum was beside him on the floor.  
  
Once he’d regained enough of his motor-skills, the Assassin offered Cassian a handkerchief from his pocket.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
“ _No es problema_. I’ll remember not to ask about that again.”  
  
Cassian stared at Lynch with wide eyes, momentarily distracted from the more physical aspect of his misery. “You speak Festian?”  
  
Callum smiled. “Aguilar is Festian. Was, I mean. Is? Shit, I don’t know. But he’s from Fest. And I, obviously, am of some degree of Festian descent.”  
  
“You’re only of Festian descent,” Cassian repeated, “But you speak it fluently? It’s not the most common language in the galaxy.”  
  
Callum grimaced. “It’s part of the Bleeding Effect. Parts of Aguilar’s knowledge are literally leaking into my head. It’s like cognitive dissonance: I kind of… Understand and don’t understand the words at the same time, even as I’m speaking them. And since he’s speaking Ye Olde Festian, there are some more modern words and phrases I don’t quite get.”  
  
“Is _that_ why you’ve been so friendly to me?” ‘Friendly’ didn’t even sound like the right word, given that they were two killers who couldn’t sit with their backs to a door without getting paranoid. But for their standards, Callum had been more amicable than would otherwise be expected.  
  
Callum shrugged, looking away from Cassian again. “I like you,” He muttered, scratching his neck. “You’re decent. A good guy, a good soldier. And you’re… Lively, I guess is the word I’m looking for.” A dark little smile lit across his lips. “Most of the time, anyway.”  
  
Well, it was certainly comforting to know where Cassian stood with him. “You’re not so bad yourself- when you’re not being an asshole, that is.” He remembered with better clarity now the day when he’d seduced Davarian, and Cassian realized with more than a little discomfort that he’d been minutes away from jumping Callum’s bones that day, thoroughly under the impression that he reciprocated.  
  
Had it just been the heat of the moment? Or was Callum maybe not going into as much detail as he might have otherwise? Cassian certainly wasn’t going to blurt out that he’d almost tried to take him to bed; maybe he would bring that up one day, but today his head and body were in the wrong place for it. He might not have a great deal of social or sexual experience, but Cassian at least knew that vomiting on your partner was considered to be bad form. Besides, if this _was_ purely platonic, then what was the point in fucking up a potential friendship by trying to turn it into something it wasn’t?  
  
“I feel like maybe you should see a doctor about this,” Callum remarked, nodding to Cassian as though the young Rebel’s entire being embodied a good reason to seek professional health (it probably did).  
  
“I am,” Cassian mumbled, self-consciously wiping at his mouth with the handkerchief. “I have been, since I saw you last.”  
  
Callum’s lip quirked up. “It’s like sticking your hand into a blender, isn’t it?”  
  
Cassian’s eyes rolled shut. “ _Yes._ Does it ever get easier?”  
  
“Not especially.” Callum paused. “But then, it’s kind of hard to talk openly with someone when you’re in a profession that requires keeping secrets, and you and I both still currently have our jobs, don’t we?”  
  
“I might…” Cassian rubbed his face, grimacing as his hand came away wet; the vomiting jag had started him sweating. “Hell, I might have to ask for a little while off active-duty. I couldn’t even picture what happened on Jenoport without losing it, and in the ship I was just…” He waved a hand and shook his head. “That’s not what I’m supposed to be. They didn’t promote me to Captain because they thought I was going to lose my mind a month into the promotion.”  
  
“I feel you.”  
  
He did. Cassian really did get the honest-to-God sense that Callum _did_ understand the struggle of trying to keep one’s self together under the stress, the psychological pressure of the job, the damage one took physically and mentally in the pursuit of a cause and an organization they’d each dedicated their lives to. Cassian felt strangely emotional again; it had been a long while, since he’d had that candid talk with Draven a long while back, since he’d encountered somebody who understood him.  
  
“You gonna go now?” Callum asked.  
  
“No,” Cassian shook his head. “No, right now, I’m going to lie down and sleep… _This_ off.” He grimaced, disgusted at the sight of the trashcan and the smell that was starting to emanate from it. “…But first I have to take care of this.”  
  
“You do that,” Callum said, getting to his feet and then offering Cassian a hand to stand up as well. “And I’ll go talk to Draven, debrief him on the mission. I’ll let him know you’re under the weather for now and you’ll talk to him later.”  
  
Cassian truly hoped that Draven wouldn’t react badly to that; the last time Cassian had failed to turn up for a debriefing had ended with him being removed from active-duty. But at least this time he hadn’t fouled up the mission. “Thank you, Callum.”  
  
Callum smiled, took a step towards the door, and then paused. “Want me to send K-2SO to keep you company? I’d hate to think that you’d be lonely when I leave.”  
  
Cassian snorted. “If I want to _rest_ then sending Kay in here is hardly going to make me want to-” He saw that Callum was grinning, snickering, and he rolled his eyed. “Get _out_ , Lynch.”  
  
“Of course, Captain Andor. Whatever you say, Captain Andor.”  
  
“Smartass,” Cassian muttered once the door was shut.  
  
But better a smartass for a friend than no one at all.  
  
[---]  
  
Cassian woke up.  
  
And he felt a _lot_ better than he had the day before.  
  
Apparently reconciling with Callum and more or less establishing a friendship with him had had a positive effect on Cassian’s mental state; the anxiety was still there, but it didn’t seem as daunting as it had before, and he didn’t feel quite as dead inside as he had before. Removing that particular stress from his life felt a lot better than he thought it would.  
  
He showered, and then reported to Draven. The General took Cassian’s suggestion for further time off active-duty better than Cassian thought he would. “You’re asking me if I can return you to inactive-duty, Andor?”  
  
“I am, sir,” Cassian confirmed, biting his lip as Draven lifted his coffee mug and inspected the contents with a frown, as though he’d been drugged with some sort of hallucinogen that made him see and hear things. “I… I think the mission yesterday just confirmed that I need a little more time to get myself together.”  
  
Draven’s eyebrows, which had been raised before, inched even higher. “Who the fuck are you and what did you do with Cassian Andor?”  
  
Cassian chuckled. “Still me, sir.”  
  
“Well, Andor, as much as your sudden interest in your mental health startles me-” He shook his head, bewildered, “-I’d be an idiot not to grant your request. It’s not often that my officers have enough sense to slam on the brakes when they’re about to go headfirst over a cliff.”  
  
Cassian bit back a flinch. Had he really been that bad?  
  
 _You almost killed yourself, idiot, of **course** you were that bad._  
  
“Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.”  
  
“Alright, enough, get out before I start questioning whether or not you’re an imposter,” Draven responded, waving Cassian towards the door. “And Andor, if you’re not on active duty, then I expect to see less of that metallic pain-in-my-neck. Lock him in your room, put him on a leash and leave him outside the base with a bowl full of motor-oil, I could care less- Laoluce is still snippy over that commentary on his handwriting.”  
  
Cassian fought to keep a straight face. “Will do, sir,” He said, feeling a bit guilty for saying so given that K-2SO would _never_ consent to being tied up outside like a dog, even on ( _especially_ on) the General’s orders. And it was best to never mention to K-2SO that it had happened, else he might think of some terrible little revenge to enact on the General at a later date, something far too juvenile for anyone to believe a converted Imperial droid had come up with it.  
  
He headed back to his room, dimly realizing that being off active-duty would mean more paperwork, more damnable bureaucracy, and he could almost _feel_ the unique kind of boredom that took him over whenever he was stuck behind a desk doing things that were not espionage.  
  
 _What will you do with yourself when the war ends?_ The question nagged at him, taunted him. One day, there may not be a Rebellion for Cassian to fight for; one day they may achieve their final goal, and one day Cassian may not be needed anymore. What would he do then? What else could he possibly do with his life apart from being a soldier, a killer, a spy?  
  
 _Survive the war first. Then win it. Then we can think about what to do after it all ends,_ Cassian told himself to fend off the encroaching anxiety building in his gut. One step at a time; there was no point in losing his head over something that might never even happen, however depressing an option it was. When things finally turned into official, all-out warfare with the Empire, the conflict would probably drag on for a while; a frankly, there wasn’t a guarantee that Cassian would survive it. So maybe he would never have to know anything else.  
  
 _Is that supposed to be the **optimistic** path?_  
  
Before he could kick himself for falling into dangerous levels of pessimism and more or less _wanting_ death as the alternative to living a functional life, he opened the door to his room and saw Callum sitting at the desk. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“Good to see you too, Cassian,” Callum remarked dryly. He had a pack of cards in his hand, and was flipping them through his fingers as he spoke. “I figured since you’re not gonna be blowing up any more factories in the near future, maybe you’d like to try your hand against me?” He held up the cards indicatively.  
  
Cassian blinked. “Uh… Sure- I guess? I haven’t played in a while.” He hadn’t played since he was a teenager, with some other kids in the resistance faction he’d been apart of; back in the days when he’d had a group of friends/friendly acquaintances because he hadn’t become _such_ a cynical, one-track-minded bastard yet that he couldn’t socialize with people normally.  
  
“That’s fine,” Callum said with a grin. “I won’t play you for money. _Yet_ , anyway.”  
  
Cassian chuckled as he grew on the idea, bewildered once more that he had a friend who was not K-2SO, somebody he could relate to on a different level, somebody who seemed to understand him for who and what he was. “Alright then, I don’t need to be anywhere right now.”  
  
“Excellent! Sit on down and let’s see if you play as well as you fight.”  
  
Cassian sat down on one end of the bed, Callum taking up the other; and for the first time in a very long time, he was sincerely, honestly, at ease.  
  
-End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Alright!
> 
> Damn, but this was a big story. Lots of revision and editing went into it before I finally forced myself to stop micromanaging and just post the damn story.
> 
> I have a sequel mapped out, and ideally want to do some one-shot stories bridging the two, so be on the lookout!

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn’t help but think of the Force Ghosts when I was planning this out, and the way Aguilar/the Bleeding Effect was portrayed in the movie… I mean, it sounded like an interesting parallel to draw.
> 
> …And also I really enjoy the idea that Aguilar is standing off to the side saying “OH GOD DON’T DO THAT” and “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU DON’T TURN YOUR BACK ON THAT GUY AND HIS MURDER-BOT”. That’s fun too.


End file.
